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Should small static oil lamps be extinguishable up close?


wesp5

Oil lamps  

38 members have voted

  1. 1. Should small static oil lamps be exstinguishable up close?

    • Yes
    • No
    • Yes or no, depending on a new gameplay setting.
    • Yes or no, depending on how mappers define them.


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The title says it all. In my opinion it's only logical that the player can snuff out these oil lamps the same way as candles and adding this is as easy as changing one def file. I doubt it will change actual mission gameplay much as you need to be very close to the lamps to do this in the first place.

Edited by wesp5
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As this topic has been discussed at length in "Things thta could be improved", I would leave it out of the base game. After we sorted out, how this can be done, players can include it, if they want to, but I would not change it in general. Maybe we can make a wiki-entry how to change it, so people can find it more easily?

Or as a compromise we could try to change that behaviour in the options menu. But this, of course, needs some coding and since there are more important matters, I think no one wants to spend the time needed on this one...

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After we sorted out, how this can be done, players can include it, if they want to, but I would not change it in general.

Why? Because it might make some missions easier by saving a water arrow or two? Sometimes I have the feeling that real improvements rather than mere bug fixes most of the time get rather conservative responses here like: do not change our game, it's great exactly like it is ;)!

Edited by wesp5
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I don't see a problem with having this available along with lights you can't put out in new missions.

 

Existing missions though should stay as the author intended, if they put a fixed non extinguishable light in a particular place then thats what they intended for that mission, if they wanted the player to be able to put it out they'd have used a candle or some other light source you can turn off.

Edited by esme
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Why? Because it might make some missions easier by saving a water arrow or two? Sometimes I have the feeling that real improvements rather than mere bug fixes most of the time get rather conservative responses here like: do not change our game, it's great exactly like it is ;)!

Have you seen the number of bugs? It's quite insane.

You can call me Phi, Numbers, Digits, Ratio, 16, 1618, or whatever really, as long as it's not Phil.

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Existing missions though should stay as the author intended, if they put a fixed non extinguishable light in a particular place then thats what they intended for that mission...

I don't think this is really true, because to light e.g. a corridor of a mansion that is not electrified, you have had no other options that using oil lamps.

Also oil lamps can already be extinguished with water arrows so the change isn't critical.

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This did get discussed at length and there was no agreement that it'd be an improvement. Certainly not in existing maps, the consensus was very much against it.

The problem with this is that the discussion involved maybe a handful of people, half of which were developers who have enough work just fixing the bugs. Still interest was high enough to make a quick solution available which in my opion is really wasted knowledge if it only ends up in my own personal TDM version...

Edited by wesp5
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I don't think this is really true, because to light e.g. a corridor of a mansion that is not electrified, you have had no other options that using oil lamps.

 

 

If you're going to go on at length about how your ideas are "real improvements", you might want to avoid making arguments that are factually incorrect.

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Still interest was high enough to make a quick solution available which in my opion is really wasted knowledge if it only ends up in my own personal TDM version...

That's not interest in making snuffable oil lamps per se, it's interest in showing you how to customise TDM to your taste.

Some things I'm repeatedly thinking about...

 

- louder scream when you're dying

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If you're going to go on at length about how your ideas are "real improvements", you might want to avoid making arguments that are factually incorrect.

When I changed the oil lamps I only found two candle types among the static lights, both of which have multiple candles so that I assume that they can't be extinguished either without water arrows. So besides placing a lot of cupboards or holders with moveable candles, what are the options? My impression was that there simply are no close-up-exstinguishable static lights. Or am I missing something?

Edited by wesp5
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there's an easy way round this, just put a true/false condition on the oil lamps to be put out by players hand, and the default setting is false, this way it wont break older maps.

 

eg

 

can_be_put_out_by_player [no];

 

and a option on flamable objects where they burst in to flames if used to put out oil lamps.

 

canStartAFireIfUsedToPutOutOilLamp[yes];

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I voted 'no', but that's my answer to 'should the base game change to include this?', which is a different question.

 

Since lighting is designed by the mappers, and he or she chooses the lights they want based on behavior, we shouldn't change the behavior of existing lights.

 

Mappers are certainly free to include your work in their map. There is precedence for this. Other mappers have changed the way the player can snuff out candles w/o picking them up, for example. But that's a local change, not a global one.

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Sometimes I have the feeling that real improvements rather than mere bug fixes most of the time get rather conservative responses here like: do not change our game, it's great exactly like it is ;)!

 

Not true. Lots of things have been changed/improved over the years based on player feedback/suggestions, but we try very hard not to impact existing missions.

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So besides placing a lot of cupboards or holders with moveable candles, what are the options? My impression was that there simply are no close-up-exstinguishable static lights. Or am I missing something?

 

 

Your statement was that map authors have no options for corridors other than electric lights and oil lamps. This is factually wrong. You've already listed candles as another option. Other extinguishable possibilities include open gas lights, torches, caged flames (hanging or brazier), and movable oil lamps (which can already be turned on and off). Non-extinguishable options include enclosed candles, magical globe-lights, and enclosed gas lamps. And those are just the ones included by default.

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I voted yes. The reason is because

 

-I understand wesp's frustration. I felt the same way when I first started playing TDM, I got used to it and it really doesn't bother me that much now. But I know it might bother others too, specially new players.

 

-It's the logical thing. Being able to extinguish oil lamps, they are not as easy as a candle but they are definitely extinguishable with a bit more effort.

 

-I don't necessarily think extinguishing oil lamps would make water arrows useless. Specially considering the quantity of water arrows is much lower than the oil lamps or candles in a map.

 

I do understand tho than some areas like houses and small places can't have the electricity and some rely on oil lamps as a static light source.

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Other extinguishable possibilities include open gas lights, torches, caged flames (hanging or brazier), and movable oil lamps (which can already be turned on and off).

Talk was about fixed *close-up* extinguishable lights. I'm pretty sure none of the above are of that kind, except for the last one which I didn't know existed, and which is another big argument in favor of my suggestion! How do you explain that movable oil lamps can be extinugished, but the same kind of static oil lamps can't?

Edited by wesp5
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For real, though, make a variant. You don't need to overwrite what's already there. I know you just love realism--in this fantastical game about stealing candlesticks to make a living no less--and we're all aware that you can, indeed, snuff oil lamps with spitty fingers, but you're going to give somebody an aneurysm with your approach to it.

Edited by Airship Ballet
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For real, though, make a variant. You don't need to overwrite what's already there.

Can I get the modified files to work without putting them into the archive pk4s? In that case it would be very easy to release an Unofficial Patch or something ;)! What other things are you adding to your variations of the game that the rest of us don't know about? Like demagogue hinted at in the improvement thread...

 

... but you're going to give somebody an aneurysm with your approach to it.

I know! I'm as stubborn as some of the developers are and this isn't the first time either :). You must understand I really love TDM and admire all the work that went into it, but I just can't understand why quite often suggestions are blocked "because we mustn't change existing missions." Has anyone ever tried if changing a detail like this would actually break something? Maybe people are fearing feature creep or similar, but since I play TDM, I haven't noticed anything much in regard of new or modified features at all. Maybe there were a lot of bug fixes, but most of the time I probably didn't even notice them. So have new features been added since 2.0?

Edited by wesp5
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That's not interest in making snuffable oil lamps per se, it's interest in showing you how to customise TDM to your taste.

 

That was exactly the reason I helped wesp5 in the first place. If I really had wished, that this would be included I would not have voted no, after all... It was a nice exercise to modify and get a feeling for def-files and it was nice to help.

 

Can I get the modified files to work without putting them into the archive pk4s? In that case it would be very easy to release an Unofficial Patch or something ;)! What other things are you adding to your variations of the game that the rest of us don't know about? Like demagogue hinted at in the improvement thread...

 

You can unzip the pk4-files. Any file replaced/modified here will supercede the packed files.

If you want to know, what not official variations people have included, open a thread with exactly this question.

 

 

I know! I'm as stubborn as some of the developers are and this isn't the first time either :). You must understand I really love TDM and admire all the work that went into it, but I just can't understand why quite often suggestions are blocked "because we mustn't change existing missions." Has anyone ever tried if changing a detail like this would actually break something? Maybe people are fearing feature creep or similar, but since I play TDM, I haven't noticed anything much in regard of new or modified features at all. Maybe there were a lot of bug fixes, but most of the time I probably didn't even notice them. So have new features been added since 2.0?

 

I understand, that you are very convinced, that this feature has to be included, but I would say, if not enough people here agree, you will just have to accept, that it is a feature most people don't want to see in the mod (of course, this does not include all players and most likely not even all forum members, but still you will have to deal with it). You can still include it for yourself. As for testing: I don't think, that anyone actively working on the mod has the time to extensively test, which effects each and every bugfix has on older missions. You have to keep in mind, that many people here, are working and spending their precious and rare spare time on the mod. So they have to priorise, what should be done. And as for a list with added features and bugfixes: Go to the darkmod mainpage, in the first post under "Recent News", you can find a link to the current changelog, where you can find all changes since 2007. Have fun looking through it.

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I voted yes, I dont see why not, if its a small flame, why wouldnt you be able to extinguish it if you get you hands on it? Enclosed, electrical lights, pretty big flames, magical stuff, thats your tip you cant put it out by yourself, gameplay wise. But I never ever put out any lights, just cant be bothered to do it, so its nothing really personal for me.

 

As we have seen, the developers dont believe this is a design choice they would like. So for me, this is the end of it, as far as making it to the core game is concerned.

 

I think it is about time people start collecting tweaks that they believe would make TDM better and release that stuff as "XYZ Improvement Patch" with enough info so people can try it out and see if that works for them and actually improve their experience. In a non-destructive way, stuff you could put in and take out if you want, without damaging the install.

 

Yours (and Destined's?) is a good example.

 

Im tempted to do the same regarding combat, take Sirgen's modiffications, see what I can do myself, and release something for people that might appreciate TDM's combat possibilities (as we imagine it).

 

Perhaps there could be a forum space for that.

Edited by RPGista
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except for the last one which I didn't know existed, and which is another big argument in favor of my suggestion! How do you explain that movable oil lamps can be extinugished, but the same kind of static oil lamps can't?

 

 

They have a switch.

 

So have new features been added since 2.0?

 

 

At this point, I can't even tell if you're just trolling.

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Yours (and Destined's?) is a good example.

 

wesp5 brought up the idea and I thought "this can't be too difficult". So I tried around a bit and came up with the solution posted in "Things that could be improved". I wanted to help wesp5, since it seemed as if he/she could not do it without help. And if this solution makes the game more enjoyable for him/her, I was glad to help. I did not think, it would be discussed at this length...

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I voted yes, just to keep the thought line consistent, if I can snuff out a candle......

 

However, having a few oil lamps myself, and are used during power outages, I am not so sure I would want to snuff some of them out by hand, as the wicks are bigger than a simple candle string, and they seem stubborn to go out, even when I drop the wick down to snuff them. - Figured I'd get finger-burned quite well... so that would be health points,!! ;) Would not be able to crack any safes that night

 

Oil and water don't mix, so IF there ever any effort to do this, i would like to see water arrows put them out, but the lamps would go out with quite a bit of sputtering, popping and such, so this action is not totally noiseless and there a risk with that... I think people would like this aspect...

 

Thanks for all of the hard work guys! Love the game!!

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