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Turn off blood? Soften the insults?


NeonGadget

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Do it like the guys from marketing department: Alt-tab to some other application whenever someone comes too close. They used office applications. In your case, a parent-approved game might be more suitable. Also always ensure a good view on all entry points to your location, so they can't sneak up on you when you are wearing headphones.

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Even after years of playing this game, i ashamedly learn new things i have never even noticed when playing it. :blush:

 

It's more obvious somehow in Thief Deadly Shadows.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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Even after years of playing this game, i ashamedly learn new things i have never even noticed when playing it. :blush:

If you do not kill AI (just blackjacking or ghosting), no AI can react to any blood stains. AI also will not react to stains it can't see. It is easy to miss that part of the gameplay.

I played years without knowing how to rotate objects. Always wondered how others deal with all the clutter in the few missions that are actively designed to encourage the moving of objects. Then i stumbled upon some wiki article and felt enlightened...

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I played years without knowing how to rotate objects. Always wondered how others deal with all the clutter in the few missions that are actively designed to encourage the moving of objects. Then i stumbled upon some wiki article and felt enlightened...

I hope most of these secrets are now explained in the loading tips!

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I started playing at the time where it needed a Doom 3 installed to run. I do not know whether object rotation (and holding objects nearer or father from the player) is explained in the training mission (i really should replay it after all that years - it surely must have changed a lot).

 

But loading tips are a mission-specific thing if i remember correctly. So i doubt it beeing explained in the loading tips of a relevant amount of missions. And loading times are a really machine specific thing anyway. I regularly get my minutes of loading on my ole rig. But there certainly are people out there who only wait seconds for most missions to start.

 

All in all, it is not that big of a thing anyway. You do not need all that "secrets" to be able to knock or even ghost your way through most missions. It might be a good idea for mission authors relying on less common (outside of the thief series) game mechanics to mention that in the mission notes or briefing. Then the player knows what to search for in the wiki.

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But loading tips are a mission-specific thing if i remember correctly. So i doubt it beeing explained in the loading tips of a relevant amount of missions.

I meant the new random playing tips that are being displayed on the side of the main menu in the most recent TDM version...

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  • 2 weeks later...

How about not giving swear words a power they don't deserve in the first place? Shit = poop, but "shit" is "bad"? In the end its all just emotion being tossed around via sound waves. Furthermore nobody thinks of having sex with mothers when they say "motherfucker", when people say its they've jammed their toe or are saying it to someone to simply highlight their anger. Your parents are teaching you to feel bad when you hear these words and potentially to look down on others for using them, that is wrong to a large degree. Well it comes to real world use, its all about the intent, and only that, because some people are taught to use those words and get in patterns of use so frequent that the term "motherfucker" becomes as synonymous as the word "dude". Literally used in place of "dude" sometimes. They're just sound waves.... Don't blame your parents if they don't know this, not many do it seems, at least not put into words as much. They may have other reasons and are just doing their best to protect you and give you a good life. I mean you can get a vague idea about someones likely background based on how they talk and it will indicate a general sense of how much care other people into the comfort level of those around them, things like that, but thats about it. For example, many super polite people you might expect to be thoroughly nice to the core won't go into a burning building to save a stranger, but some silent, truly *nice*, but not overtly "friendly" people will (and that included people that swear up a storm while chatting about physics).

Edited by Noisycricket
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  • 3 weeks later...

I find it very disheartening that you're needing to ask how to edit a game because someone doesn't like you seeing blood and insults, this far into the 21th century. If it were me I'd ask my parents what is actually their problem, and request them to let me enjoy my game in peace without nosing more than they need to into my life... obviously in a polite and non-accusatory matter, I'm not trying to advice anyone to be mean or disrespectful here. Sorry if this answer seems a little rough... I just can't stand pointless censorship, age discrimination, and people blowing stuff out of proportion in general.

 

Otherwise I wouldn't really bother with such editing, as you're only destroying the realism of the game there. If you wish to avoid blood, don't get into fights and use the right tools; Don't use the sword or broad-head arrows to take out enemies, but instead use the blackjack or gas arrows. Another neat trick is to drop crates on their heads from above.

Edited by MirceaKitsune
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Well it's funny that the restrictions here could force someone to become good at ghosting (the ultimate playstyle). They could just hit Escape or Quickload whenever they alert an enemy. Eventually they will need to load the saves less and less (although in my experience stealth is significantly harder in TDM than Thief 1/2).

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Well it's funny that the restrictions here could force someone to become good at ghosting (the ultimate playstyle). They could just hit Escape or Quickload whenever they alert an enemy. Eventually they will need to load the saves less and less (although in my experience stealth is significantly harder in TDM than Thief 1/2).

Ghosting in no way is the ultimate playstyle! Obviously, disabling any thread while staying undetected is! For a perfect playthrough you have to dispose all non-friendly AI non-lethally one by one without anyone noticing. Just kidding. It really depends on the type of mission, environment layout - and player.

 

Generally, if you need to pass a guard twice, taking it out is most often less dangerous, than sparing it. Taking out wandering AI is more beneficial when it uses randomized patrol routes. Killing and getting seen are almost always bad. But luring an AI by toggling lights, letting doors open, making noise or even letting it get a glimpse of you does work incredibly well sometimes although the latter two raise the stealth score.

I most of the time try to first take out all threats visiting a place before i loot it. So nobody can detect anything missing. I use electric lights as presence detectors, so i know whether a place has been visited by guards after me when i come back. Stationary torches are perfect AI traps. Douse one and place yourself in the shadow opposing the torch. If a guard tries to relight it, take it out with the blackjack. Guards carrying torches can be downgraded by firing a water arrow at something above the torch and dousing it. I never saw an AI relighting a carried torch doused that way. They also do not draw their weapons in reaction. Guess, TDM world knows sudden localized rain drops and there is no reason in trying to relight a wet torch (yeah, it's bugusing - but it's also fun). You can also douse a carried torch by directly hitting it with a water arrow. The AI draws its weopn afterwards and starts searching. But it does not know where to search and has no light source anymore. After some time it will just return to normal routine and can be blackjacked much easier than before.

 

Pure ghosting is feasible in most missions. But can get tedious rather quickly in guard-filled missions. It is no fun anymore after sneaking past the same patroling guards the tenth time. Just take em out and stuff them somewhere "safe". You might stack them but do not drop other stuff on them - they are rather weak when unconcious.

If using the balckjack (or crates - not tried that yet) would be possibly lethal in TDM, then the calculations would change. But i like that there are guaranteed-to-be-non-lethal methods of taking threats out in this game. Feels somehow better that way. They are just pixels, but most of them represent people that just happen to have a normally rather boring job.

 

I find it very disheartening that you're needing to ask how to edit a game because someone doesn't like you seeing blood and insults, this far into the 21th century.

Most of the time such harsh restrictions are the effect of the fear of parents that love their child and do not want it to get harmed or dulled by experiencing the forbidden content. There is a common misconception, that seeing abstract virtual violence as a child makes you more likely to use real violence later. Germany has a debate about "killing games" (original term: "Killerspiele"), that boils up again each time a kid goes postal after experiencing years of bullying in school when that kid also happens to have an FPS game installed on his computer.

The real problem is, that parent's love in combination with common misconceptions about the effects of media consumption lead to harsh restrictions they then force on their children. Less fear and more information would probably prevent that.

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There are games like "Hitman" that I will not play, and videos like "American Sniper" that I will not watch.

I will not go down that rabbit hole. I recoil from the insanity.

But TDM isnt like this, so I don't see the problem.

 

 

Actually I wasn't a fan of the later Hitman games for this reason either. They were simply too evil: You'd spend hours premeditating how to infiltrate a place and brutally murder someone... didn't matter who the person was, how they were like, who else was there, etc. nor were you given any choice by the mechanics. I ended up playing it eventually since it was still too interesting, but it had an odd way of being really uncomfortable.

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Actually this brings up something we really should discuss. Should there be a non swearing version of Ai speak, or

a way to just have them say a different word. Most of the swearing I've heard is really very mild,

by my measure lol. Still, if it broadens the appeal, it might be something worth considering for the dev team.

Not really, I feel like half the missions and the setting itself is based in some very morbid cases.

Even if it's not in gameplay mechanics or audible form there are many text entries and missions that are flat out dependent or based around very adult subjects, yours coming to mind for obvious and personally voiced reasons.

In essence, we'd need an entire rating system, something most users can't be bothered to care for.

I like to record difficult stealth games, and right now you wonderful people are the only ones delivering on that front.

Click here for the crappy channel where that happens.

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Not really, I feel like half the missions and the setting itself is based in some very morbid cases.

Even if it's not in gameplay mechanics or audible form there are many text entries and missions that are flat out dependent or based around very adult subjects, yours coming to mind for obvious and personally voiced reasons.

In essence, we'd need an entire rating system, something most users can't be bothered to care for.

Perhaps a rating system modeled after that of the Roman Catholic Church's Legion of Decency? That's the coolest system because not even a Roman Catholic abides by it. It isn't in human nature.

 

I think the "language and blood" in TDM is mostly humorous. Can't erase it without erasing the game.

Try to imagine TDM without taverns and drunken blither.

I like that TDM missions tend to have depth and there's a zillion ways to play them.

 

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Nothing against a system providing aid for people to mark missions as "contains X" where X might be stuff including "spiders", "undead", "jump scares", "quicktime events", "keyhunt", "gore", "sexism", "racism", "murder", "torture", "porn", "child abuse references"...

 

Should be easy to maintain a wiki page containing a more complete list for mod authors to pick matching keywords from. There also already is a "Spiders and Undead" Column in the missions list that might be filled with other keywords as well.

 

Does anyone know of existing detailed lists of things we could build upon?

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