Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

Deus Ex mod - like Dark mod is to Thief?


tefdal

Recommended Posts

Hi,

 

I'm a big fan of the Dark Mod and everything the team has managed to do. Such great work, and such great community maps. All for free too - it's really appreciated.

 

I wondered whether anyone had ever thought of doing what Dark Mod is to Thief for Deus Ex - like take the core systems and open it up to a total mod remake? So it would be I guess the core operations like hacking terminals, different security terminals and core skills, and then open source it and the maps? Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting anyone will ever do it, it would be a phenomenal workload - just curious really. It seems like it would be the perfect sister to the dark mod? Perhaps the more RPG and story centric nature of the game means it wouldn't be a good fit.

Edited by tefdal
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi,

 

I'm a big fan of the Dark Mod and everything the team has managed to do. Such great work, and such great community mad maps. All for free too - it's really appreciated.

 

I wondered whether anyone had ever thought of doing what Dark Mod is to Thief for Deus Ex - like take the core systems and open it up to a total mod remake? So it would be I guess the core operations like hacking terminals, different security terminals and core skills, and then open source it and the maps? Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting anyone will ever do it, it would be a phenomenal workload - just curious really. It seems like it would be the perfect sister to the dark mod? Perhaps the more RPG and story centric nature of the game means it wouldn't be a good fit.

 

I don't recall if anyone has mentioned an interest in doing that but it would be cool. The Mod is open source, so anyone can do it if they want. There was an attempt at a System Shock styled mod, but that shut down years ago. A shame really.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

DX-like games are story-based, not mission-based.

 

BTW: http://store.steampowered.com/app/397550/

 

Yeah I saw the revision mod - looking forward to playing it!

 

Also, yes Deus Ex does have an awesome overarching story. So I was imagining just isolated missions like Dark Mod, just using the consituent elements - terminals, hacking, weapons and of course vents primarily. I guess the main obstacle you could argue is that in Deus ex you are unlocking different skills to give options, or the fact that dialogue options refer to previous events - still, maybe it would be possible to write and design around that, in the same way you choose your load out in Dark Mod... So it wouldn't of course be a total replication of Deus Ex, just inspired by.

 

I thought Quadrilateral Cowboy might be a little like I describe, also in the doom3 engine I think. But it seems the mapping scene never really took off on that game sadly, though open sourced too.

 

@New Horizon

For sure Dark Mod is open sourced, it would be great if someone took up the task, but I expect that's pretty unlikely at this stage.

Edited by tefdal
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We've talked about a scifi/cyberpunk branch of Darkmod many times. I'm one of the biggest fans of the idea, so that's why I remember. I've always been more in the scifi camp than the fantasy camp, but Darkmod is gritty and realist so it makes up for it.

 

Anyway, I think one of the popular ideas recently is not to do a full branch of the Darkmod sourcecode, but to create an asset pack that lets people make cyberpunk levels on the vanilla engine. That's much easier to do & so more likely to happen. You also don't split up the game or audience, which has pros and cons, but more pros maybe. (The one concession I'd make is cyberpunk levels might need their own download channel.)

 

We can change all the models, textures, gui art and AI models. We can keep the search behavior. We recently got guns working, but need a new animation for it that can just replace the old one. As long as we don't need specialized tools, just guns and cyberpunky world interactions that can be done by script, etc, you could do some very good cyberpunk levels I think.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are a lot of open assets out there though. I think the only thing that would really need to be created by us is new GUI, new AI models for our animations, and an animation for shooting a gun/laser. Much of the rest we could snatch from other places providing open scifi assets, websites and other indie games. (By "open" I mean already licensed for other party use without restrictions.)

 

Edit. I mean my idea, aside from the usual sites for free assets, was to just skimp off the assets of an entire open source scifi game like NeoTokyo. Fan asset upgrades for AAA scifi games are another source, although the IP issue is more ambiguous (they're new textures and models, but meant to replace existing ones, but never contested by the companies...). I've seen them for DXIW, SS2, FO3, Stalker, etc.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ironically, it might have been easier to do that years ago... before The Dark Mod went standalone and ditched Doom 3's futuristic-looking assets.

 

Wait, is that irony?

Just my thought. TDM is based on a sci-fi game and now we discuss adding sci-fi assets that are missing...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess you could still link assets to the Doom3 install for those that have it (or try to. I don't know if it'd work), and everybody else gets a missing assrts error, but it'd cut the audience down even if it did work.

Public licensed assets let you package them in the FM for everybody.

So it's not too ironic. Well I guess it is a little ironic, converting a medieval game converted from a scifi game into another scifi game. ;)

  • Like 1

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The real issue is manpower and enthusiasm. It would be a relatively painless job with a dedicated team, but as the fan mission community shows, fewer people are interested in this kind of thing than there used to be ten, or even five years ago.

  • Like 1

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ironically, it might have been easier to do that years ago... before The Dark Mod went standalone and ditched Doom 3's futuristic-looking assets.

 

Wait, is that irony?

LOL

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's cool to see some of you, even you developer heroes, have thought of similar - it would be so great to see.

 

The real issue is manpower and enthusiasm. It would be a relatively painless job with a dedicated team, but as the fan mission community shows, fewer people are interested in this kind of thing than there used to be ten, or even five years ago.

 

Yeah that's true. I think the Deus Ex franchise getting succesfully rebooted, plus the resurgence of stealth in the form of Dishonoured (and the Rhief reboot itself) played a part because the need is now sated - and perhaps in another irony the work of TDM proved the desire and audience for deeper stealth games to be made so reducing the community..? Or just the fact that consoles have taken a chunk of what was purely a PC domain, or that people expect things to be AAA polished and nothing else perhaps. Having only had map experience back in the days of Doom wads i'm personally not able to do much or to personally spearhead the concept. That said I am going to look into mapping for TDM when I finish my current project, and will look more at the coding doom mod side then too, so you never know one day I would love to help, but you devs maybe hear that one a lot..

Edited by tefdal
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having only had map experience back in the days of Doom wads i'm personally not able to do much or to personally spearhead the concept. That said I am going to look into mapping for TDM when I finish my current project, and will look more at the coding doom mod side then too, so you never know one day I would love to help, but you devs maybe hear that one a lot..

On this note, it is not hard to build good-looking medium-complexity maps as long as you don't get carried away and do something really huge and involved (which is where a lot of personal and group efforts tend to die).

 

The editor is user-friendly, there are a lot of useful tutorials, and the next version of TDM will come with a load of extra help for newbies which will substantially help with the mapping process.

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are a lot of open assets out there though. I think the only thing that would really need to be created by us is new GUI, new AI models for our animations, and an animation for shooting a gun/laser. Much of the rest we could snatch from other places providing open scifi assets, websites and other indie games. (By "open" I mean already licensed for other party use without restrictions.)

Yes, and if there are people (mappers, animators and coders) who are willing to combine things from these idtech 4 mod projects.

 

For a start, a small experiment:

we need to find a tdm-mapper who would like to take a look at a map of the prey mod lostcity, export the map model (or take parts), import it in darkradiant and re-texture & re-light it, put some tdm-models in it.

(maybe Fieldmedic??)

 

For example, textures we can take from Duke nukem High resolution pack (license)

And for the interface, how about from Icarus starship command simulator, from user stepan1010.

 

And just for fun we can call this project, "The Dark Mission".

 

Some example vids:

Edited by freyk

Info: My portfolio and darkmod graphical installer
Amnesty for Bikerdude!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why not?

its just a small test.

(I did this also with unreal 1 and deus ex. Export the t3d, import it, retextured and added some objects. But i didnt completed and publisched it)

edit: (another example: Unreal 1 mission to ThieveryUT: http://freyk0.tripod.com/thief/haven.htm

 

Thief 3 and deusex 2 live side by side.

Maybe Dark mod and dark mission too. (If we use the same codebase and other stuff).

 

Combine things, like weapons from the rwm pack.

But i dont want to make Rambo shooter.

Edited by freyk

Info: My portfolio and darkmod graphical installer
Amnesty for Bikerdude!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For the experiment you can use the existing tdm textures and assests.

Is it possible to export the "wireframes" of the prey map to tdm?

 

At this moment im trying to create a briefing scene.

Got the deusex 1 traingsmission music playing in the saintlucia briefing.

Great music mix.

Edited by freyk

Info: My portfolio and darkmod graphical installer
Amnesty for Bikerdude!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Recent Status Updates

    • Ansome

      Well then, it's been about a week since I released my first FM and I must say that I was very pleasantly surprised by its reception. I had expected half as much interest in my short little FM as I received and even less when it came to positive feedback, but I am glad that the aspects of my mission that I put the most heart into were often the most appreciated. It was also delightful to read plenty of honest criticism and helpful feedback, as I've already been given plenty of useful pointers on improving my brushwork, level design, and gameplay difficulty.
      I've gotten back into the groove of chipping away at my reading and game list, as well as the endless FM catalogue here, but I may very well try my hand at the 15th anniversary contest should it materialize. That is assuming my eyes are ready for a few more months of Dark Radiant's bright interface while burning the midnight oil, of course!
      · 4 replies
    • The Black Arrow

      Any of you heard Age of Wonders 4's OST?
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0TcoMGq4iA
      I love how after all these years, Michiel van den Bos still conserves his "Melodic" spirit.
      · 0 replies
    • nbohr1more

      Moddb article is up:  https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod/news/the-dark-mod-212-is-here
      · 3 replies
    • Petike the Taffer

      I've been gone for a while, but now I'm back, have a new desktop and I want to get back to making missions and playing missions. And doing other contributions. Waiting for my reset password for the wiki, but I'll take a look at it soon. Hello, all.
      · 4 replies
    • snatcher

      TDM Modpack 4.0 for The Dark Mod 2.12 released!
      · 1 reply
×
×
  • Create New...