FM database "The Dark Mod DB" released!

[darksilence 52]

Since my first map might take a while to be finished (a few years at least), I developed TDMDB in the meantime, a database application that allows to more easily view and filter all available missions, simplifying the process of finding missions that are suited to one's taste.

You can just go ahead and check it out here: tdmdb.com/missions. It's on a very limited shared server, so don't expect blazing speeds, although loading times appear to be reasonable enough.

You can use the application to, for example, find all city missions that are also part of a series, and have them sorted by size. Or all independent missions that have undead and spiders. Or missions by a specific author that have EFX Reverb support. And so on.

Or you can just scroll down through all missions, reading about them and looking at their pictures.

All of the information was retrieved from the wiki and thedarkmod.com by a couple of scripts, and stored in a database.

 

The application may be installed as an official TDM resource, which was my original idea and motivation (more on this thread). For this purpose, you may find the full source code and installation instructions on this GitHub repo. The data retrieval process might change if this becomes an official resource, but that can actually be a good thing, since scraping the wiki and thedarkmod.com is not ideal long-term.

In any case, for the time being, the application can be fully used on tdmdb.com. Hopefully it helps many find the missions of their dreams! (it did help me find some amazing series).

By the way, if this is breaking any rules, just let me know. Also, please feel free to tell me if you find any bugs, missing data, or if you have any suggestions on how to make the application better  

Edited August 26, 2020 by darksilence

[Amadeus 347]

This looks awesome! Well done! It's great to finally have a searchable list of all the FMs. One bit of design feedback for you, your main title "The Dark Mod Database" is impossibly small. "Filter" and "Clear" are bigger fonts, yet your header gets no love

[roygato 11]

This is certainly cool. Historically, I just played every mission and will continue to, but when revisiting, it could make the process of choosing what to play a bit easier.

I have a couple of notes that came to mind:

1.  I'm not sure how I feel about showing the monster categories in plain sight as they are currently. It's certainly invaluable for filtering and as general information, but if it's not immediately obvious that the mission does have those elements, it may be a bit of a spoiler for a first-timer. Say, there is a big twist where the undead appear or something.
2. If it's meant to be installed as a desktop application, I would love if it could go a bit beyond its current functionality and add two aspects that Thief 2's FMSel fan mission manager app uses, those being rating and notes. Rating would be a good filtering option and it's the easiest way to show what I did and didn't enjoy. Notes would let the player write whatever they want about the mission; in Thief 2, I tend to write some thoughts after completion, both as a mini-review and if there is something in particular I should remember in the future, like if the mission is hot-garbage or has performance issues or massive bugs or whatever.

Anyway, I realize if #2 in particular is way off-mark for what this is intended to do. It's just something that I've always wished TDM would have.

Edited August 26, 2020 by roygato
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[Amadeus 347]

1 minute ago, roygato said:

 I'm not sure how I feel about showing the monster categories in plain sight as they are currently. It's certainly invaluable for filtering and as general information, but if it's not immediately obvious that the mission does have those elements, it may be a bit of a spoiler for a first-timer. Say, there is a big twist where the undead appear or something.

I do agree with roygato on this.  While arachnophobia is definitely a real thing, it would be nice if there was an opt-in function so that people can find that information out without it being overtly presented. There are plenty of missions where the undead are kind of a surprise, so it's kind of spoilerly if "THIS FM HAS UNDEAD" is presented outright.

[stgatilov 1142]

28 minutes ago, Amadeus said:

I do agree with roygato on this.  While arachnophobia is definitely a real thing, it would be nice if there was an opt-in function so that people can find that information out without it being overtly presented. There are plenty of missions where the undead are kind of a surprise, so it's kind of spoilerly if "THIS FM HAS UNDEAD" is presented outright.

Spoiler section is used for it on forum.
Although for the website it's probably OK to only leave this info on filtering pane.

[darksilence 52]

Thanks everyone for reviewing the application and for sharing all of that feedback.

@Amadeus I agree with the header. I've made its font bigger, so hopefully it looks better now

@roygato @Amadeus @stgatilov I also agree with the problem of spoiling the presence of monsters. I just pushed an update so that this is not shown right away; a "Click to show" button is now there instead. If a filter for a certain monster category is in use though, the spoiler will be visible right away for that category.

Edited August 26, 2020 by darksilence

[Amadeus 347]

So this might be a long way off, @darksilence but do you plan on putting in Thief fan missions as well as some point? I'm sure a lot of people here would make use of that as well. 

Edited August 26, 2020 by Amadeus

[darksilence 52]

9 hours ago, Amadeus said:

So this might be a long way off, @darksilence but do you plan on putting in Thief fan missions as well as some point? I'm sure a lot of people here would make use of that as well. 

The idea is to focus exclusively on TDM, since this is meant to be a TDM resource/asset, and not an independent website. 

If, in the future, adding Thief fan missions becomes a very real request, this is something that can of course be discussed.

[Obsttorte 1499]

Nice and thank you for the hard word that definetely went into this. One note, though: You categorized my FM "Builder Roads" as horror, but it doesn't contain any horror elements. It is intented to be ghosted more or less, so maybe that caused some confusion.

[darksilence 52]

45 minutes ago, Obsttorte said:

Nice and thank you for the hard word that definetely went into this. One note, though: You categorized my FM "Builder Roads" as horror, but it doesn't contain any horror elements. It is intented to be ghosted more or less, so maybe that caused some confusion.

Thanks!

Sorry about the confusion, but the "Mission Type" came from the wiki page, where it is categorized as "Horror". 

What would you say is the type of your mission (I still haven't played it), among the following:

Spoiler

Bank Jobs	Fan mission involving a heist or other thievy action inside a local banking institution. Will often contain the outsmarting of security systems, gaining access to a safe and cracking its code.
Castle/Fortress	Fan mission involving a heist or other thievy action inside or outside a castle or fortress, either one that serves as a military garrison, or as someone's private residence. Frequently involves background characters from the nobility.
City Missions	Fan mission that is set mainly in the streets and public spaces of an urban area, such as a town or city. Though the player is most often out on the streets, these missions tend to also involve some degree of exploration and infiltration into private and public buildings alike.
Church/Cathedral	Fan mission set in and around religious buildings and institutions, such as churches, monasteries, cathedrals, church bureaus, church workshops, etc. Frequently involves ecclesiastical characters from the TDM setting's Builder Church.
Experimental	Fan mission which involves some creative design or gameplay element that isn't typical for the vast majority of TDM missions. FMs set in highly unusual environments, or with a puzzle-like nature, can fit under this label.
Inn/Tavern	Fan mission set mostly in and around an inn, tavern or shanty. Usually focused on robbing some rich guest, acquiring an item stored by the guest at the inn, or gathering intel at the inn.
Jail/Prison	Fan mission involving an escape from a prison (by the imprisoned player character), infiltration of a prison to gather intel from inmates or help an inmate escape the prison, etc.
Lost Civilizations	Fan mission focused on the exploration of ancient ruins, whether above ground or in deep subterranean caverns. Can often overlap with the Horror or Tombs, Catacombs & Crypts type of mission, but not necessarily.
Horror	Fan mission with an overt horror theme. Depending on the author's approach and intentions, it can focus on psychological horror, or horror based on danger from supernatural threats, or varying combinations of both.
Mansion/Estate	Fan mission involving a heist or other thievy action inside someone's private residence (a fancy house, a manor house) and its surrounding grounds. Frequently involves background characters from the nobility or the more affluent townsmen or citizens.
Museum Heists	Fan mission focusing on a heist in a museum, art gallery or other institution storing priceless artefacts, artworks, gemstone collections, etc.
Outdoor/Caves	Fan mission set in a mostly natural outdoor environment, but involving the exploration of natural caves and caverns.
Outdoor/Daylight	Fan mission set in a mostly outdoor environment, during the daytime (in contrast to the usual TDM missions, set at night time or early dusk).
Outdoor/Pagan	Fan mission set in a mostly natural outdoor environment, involving some presence of pagan tribes from TDM's setting. Perhaps even pagan camps and settlements.
Pirate	Fan mission involving the presence of characters engaging in piracy or smuggling, and various related piratical themes. Can overlap with the Ship type of mission, but not necessarily.
Platforming/Jumping	Fan mission focusing on testing the player's movement, jumping and climbing skills, with or without equipment.
Sewers	Fan mission which involves the use of the city sewers or others sewers in some way, often as a stealthy means of entry or escape.
Ship	Fan mission which takes place aboard a vessel, in port or at sea, or otherwise involves ships to a great degree. Can overlap with the Pirate type of mission, but not necessarily.
Thieves' Highway / Rooftop	Fan mission involving a lot of movement and travel on the rooftops of a town or city (colloquially "The Thieves' Highway").
Tombs, Catacombs & Crypts	Fan mission involving the exploration of old tombs, catacombs and crypts, often for the purposes of treasure and artefact hunting. Can often overlap with the Horror or Lost Civilizations type of mission, but not necessarily.
Training	Fan mission label that is unique to the official Training Mission, an open-ended tutorial mission where players can practice and test their TDM gameplay skills at their own leisure, and to the smaller blackjacking-trainer FM, which focuses on practicing NPC knockouts by the player.
Warehouse	Fan mission which takes place in and around a warehouse, usually in some industrial area of a city, or at a port.

 

 

Multiple types are also accepted, if that's the case.

Thanks

Edited August 27, 2020 by darksilence

[Obsttorte 1499]

18 hours ago, darksilence said:

What would you say is the type of your mission (I still haven't played it), among the following:

Church/Experimental

[darksilence 52]

12 minutes ago, Obsttorte said:

Church/Experimental

Thanks. Updated.

[PranQster 454]

LOL. Poor siegeshop. Once I release version 5, I'll need to update the database so it doesn't show the crappy old version 1.

[NeonsStyle 572]

Awesome job. Great to see this a searchable list of all TDM missions. Well done. Should definitely be made official and

the link should be available on the TDM Game Download so people can peruse missions before downloading the game. 

[Bienie 417]

Looks great so far! Maybe you want to link up with @Petike the Taffer who does most of the work on the wiki when it comes to making pages for individual FMs. Maybe there could be at least a link to the wiki page embedded in each FM entry.

The only thing I noticed was that there seems to be a bit of inconsistency with some missions having the loading screen as the first screenshot and many others not having it at all. That and the Undead/Spiders/Ghosts spoilers seem to be wrong in many cases. I saw my mission Langhorne Lodge was listed as having neither, when in fact it has essentially nothing but ghosts and undead

[darksilence 52]

6 hours ago, Bienie said:

Looks great so far! Maybe you want to link up with @Petike the Taffer who does most of the work on the wiki when it comes to making pages for individual FMs. Maybe there could be at least a link to the wiki page embedded in each FM entry.

The only thing I noticed was that there seems to be a bit of inconsistency with some missions having the loading screen as the first screenshot and many others not having it at all. That and the Undead/Spiders/Ghosts spoilers seem to be wrong in many cases. I saw my mission Langhorne Lodge was listed as having neither, when in fact it has essentially nothing but ghosts and undead

Thanks @Bienie for checking this out and for pointing out those issues!

Great catch about the screenshots by the way. These were automatically retrieved from thedarkmod.com, but with the order being ignored. I'll fix this in the next update.

By the way, I just added undead and ghosts to Langhorne Lodge  

Also, spoiler for Chronicles of Skulduggery 3: Sacricide:

Spoiler

For this mission you'll also see Undead = No, as the undead that appear in the catacombs are not too relevant, and the wiki also ignores them (only "guards" appear under "threats", here: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Chronicles_of_Skulduggery_3:_Sacricide_(FM))

This made me think that maybe instead of Undead = Yes or No, in the future this could be something like Undead = Important or None/Irrelevant. Not the best wording, but something along those lines.

And yes, linking up with @Petike the Taffer to connect the wiki and tdmdb.com sounds great too!

At the moment, each FM entry displays links to its forum thread and to its page on thedarkmod.com, since those were easy to be automatically retrieved, based on the information on this wiki table: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Fan_Missions_for_The_Dark_Mod. This table doesn't include links to the wiki pages of each FM though, making that harder to automate (although such information may be somewhere else and I just missed it).

Edited September 2, 2020 by darksilence

[peter_spy 1544]

On 8/27/2020 at 12:51 AM, Amadeus said:

So this might be a long way off, @darksilence but do you plan on putting in Thief fan missions as well as some point? I'm sure a lot of people here would make use of that as well. 

There already is a Thief Guild site, and it contains missions for all Thief games, as well as TDM and Thievery.

[Petike the Taffer 513]

17 hours ago, darksilence said:

Thanks @Bienie for checking this out and for pointing out those issues!

Great catch about the screenshots by the way. These were automatically retrieved from thedarkmod.com, but with the order being ignored. I'll fix this in the next update.

By the way, I just added undead and ghosts to Langhorne Lodge  

Also, spoiler for Chronicles of Skulduggery 3: Sacricide:

  Hide contents

For this mission you'll also see Undead = No, as the undead that appear in the catacombs are not too relevant, and the wiki also ignores them (only "guards" appear under "threats", here: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Chronicles_of_Skulduggery_3:_Sacricide_(FM))

This made me think that maybe instead of Undead = Yes or No, in the future this could be something like Undead = Important or None/Irrelevant. Not the best wording, but something along those lines.

And yes, linking up with @Petike the Taffer to connect the wiki and tdmdb.com sounds great too!

At the moment, each FM entry displays links to its forum thread and to its page on thedarkmod.com, since those were easy to be automatically retrieved, based on the information on this wiki table: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Fan_Missions_for_The_Dark_Mod. This table doesn't include links to the wiki pages of each FM though, making that harder to automate (although such information may be somewhere else and I just missed it).

If you go this category, all missions currently listed on the wiki are listed there: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Category:Official_FMs With the exception of one mission I still need to add, all of them should already be there, up to the present.

 

The new database is nice, but linking to missions there is basically impossible.

Edited September 2, 2020 by Petike the Taffer

[darksilence 52]

@Petike the Taffer Thanks!

I've added a link to the wiki page to each FM entry, where applicable (a couple missions don't have wiki pages yet, like Away 1 - Air Pocket and A Night Of Loot: One Man's Treasure, plus a couple others that are not available for download anywhere anymore (Dragon's Claw and Winter Harvest).

[Petike the Taffer 513]

7 hours ago, darksilence said:

A Night Of Loot: One Man's Treasure

Where did you find that one ?

[darksilence 52]

4 hours ago, Petike the Taffer said:

Where did you find that one ?

Forum thread: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20416-fan-mission-a-night-of-loot-one-mans-treasure-20200613/

Page on thedarkmod.com: https://www.thedarkmod.com/missiondetails/?id=147

There's also an entry on the wiki, in this table: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Fan_Missions_for_The_Dark_Mod, added by nbohr1more.

[PsymH 5]

Just an idea: information about map size (small, medium, big, ...) would be nice. I mean not the file size in MB, but related to walkable space and maybe complexity.

[Geep 248]

@Petike the Taffer, please add a Synopsis page for 'Away 1 - Air Pocket, and help propagate its Description to www.thedarkmod.com/missiondetails. It's OK to continue to list it as a "single mission" for now. PM me if needed.

@darksilence, please add the Description to your db.

From the pk4's darkmod.txt "Description":
On the run from her husband, me and my girl. With a bribe to a ship's captain, we're away. What could go wrong now? Oh, dammit.

[darksilence 52]

1 hour ago, Geep said:

@darksilence please add the Description to your db.

From the pk4's darkmod.txt "Description":
On the run from her husband, me and my girl. With a bribe to a ship's captain, we're away. What could go wrong now? Oh, dammit.

The description for your mission was added to tdmdb.com, as requested 

Edited September 20, 2020 by darksilence