Just A Few Little Things.

[Slash]

hey long time no talk guys,

 

i havent keeped up with the thief community much latly so i dont know all of the new buzz but i checked out the new screens and its looking sweet. cant wait to get my hands on this. is there a mapper avalible yet for use. beta maybe. i cant wait to get in to some editing. i would like to see more screens of rooms and stuff to. maybe showing off the lighting and shadows. bla bla. eye candy.

 

how is the sound working out. can guards react to a door opening or foot steps. will they come looking for u and give up after a while. can they run and get help and bring them back.

 

quick question on weapons. have you guys finished the weapons. i know theres a screen with a bow in there but that has to be a realy early model. and im realy interested as to what the sword will look like. also have you succesfully made working moss arrows rope arrows and fire arrows.

 

im just wondering how fare the mod has come. im a curiuse person.

[Domarius]

I think there are more screen shots of maps in development, they are very good, don't know why they aren't on the site yet

 

Yeah Ishtvan has done all the Sound Propagation programming himself and it is awesome, sound propagates correctly through windows, around corners, no through doors that are closed but will go through when open, etc.

 

Guards come searching for you yeah. Sophisticated Zombie is going to implement higher level behaviours, such as running for help etc.

 

I programmed the script for the weapons so far - blackjack, sword, and basic arrow system which all arrows can be based off. Fire arrow was easy, just create an explosion instead of a retreivable arrow Ishtvan has created different surfaces so depending on what texture you put on a surface, an arrow may destroy or sink in.

I think there is a new model for the bow since you last looked.

The other arrow types haven't been done but a large part of their functionality is based on the "stim system" which is the way AI interact with other objects. Sparhawk has been working on this and its progressing steadily.

[Darkness_Falls]

We also just got a noisemaker arrow going. You shoot it and it bounces off the object it hits so it makes it harder for guards to figure out where it came from (like T2), and makes clicking noises for a duration. I think TDS was maybe this way, too? (with regards to bouncing), but can't remember for sure. It's just in a test stage for now, but it's neat to see it working and alerting guards.

[ZylonBane]

The classic noise arrows definitely bounce a bit. It's easy to see because of that concentric-ring trail they emit.

[Domarius]

The TDS "noise arrows" don't even deserve the name.

[ZylonBane]

You mean the fireworks arrows?

[Domarius]

Yes, that's better.

[Magnesius]

Upon reading Slash's curious questions, I thought of the object interaction in TDM. Does it work similar to the original Thief games (model brightness)? If so, is it already implemented?

 

On another note, are there some kind of global variables in the Doom 3-engine - variables which can modified and accessed in every map of the whole campaign? This could decimate linear gameplay greatly.

 

edited (typo)

Edited February 25, 2006 by Magnesius

[New Horizon]

Upon reading Slash's curious questions, I thought of the object interaction in TDM. Does it work similar to the original Thief games (model brightness)? If so, is it already implemented?

 

Do you mean frobbing an item and it hilights like in the original games? If so, then yes. It was probably one of the first things we had working.

[Magnesius]

Cool!

[Ishtvan]

On another note, are there some kind of global variables in the Doom 3-engine - variables which can modified and accessed in every map of the whole campaign? This could decimate linear gameplay greatly.

 

Yes, D3 has some persistent info classes for data that exists outside of individual FM's. What do you mean by "this could decimate linear gameplay"? Do you mean you could have a campaign where you complete maps in any order, but things you do in one map effect things in other maps?

 

This isn't really within the scope of TDM, but personally, I've always wished the "city hub" areas of a campaign allowed for more researching of the missions beforehand, and the ability to do stuff in the city hub that effects the mission. I think we talked about this a bit in the public forums. It would be great if one could decide some things about the mission beforehand, like which direction to approach from (set the player spawn / insertion point), time of day to go in (effecting light conditions and guard patrols), etc. You could condense time and wait around in the city for a few days, robbing a few small time flats while you wait for the phase of the moon or the weather to change so you can approach your target mansion undetected, or something like that.

 

Then there's the possibility of finding off-duty guards and servants in city pubs, and pickpocketing, bribing or otherwise convincing them to give you information about timing of guard patrols, lock combinations, or even offer them a percentage of the take to unlock a certain entrance for you or look the other way when you pass their guard post. You'd have to make sure the mission didn't become ridiculously easy as a result of such an "inside job," but you could make it difficult to get to a particular guard, like requiring some sort of intricate blackmail side-quest within the city section.

[bob_arctor]

Well that sounds great, however I'd imagine that is totally unachievable for most people.

However a linear multistage FM will probably be made like that, by linear I mean you have to do 4 preset submissions to get all the pieces for the main raid, not actually choosing which objectives to do.

[Magnesius]

What do you mean by "this could decimate linear gameplay"?

Well, decisions you make at the beginning could influence the overall appereance of guards/enemies in the single missions, or even influence the outcome of the whole campaign. Additionally, you could have the opportunity to enter a "bonus"-map after having read a book with additional information. The campaign is more dynamical with global variables, and I am glad they are implemented!

 

Your ideas are good, but I doubt that a "city hub" can be easily relized just as in TDS. The tricky thing is that you must have multiple savegames for each level when you save once. Think of System Shock 2: Once you saved your progress, *every* map you visited so far was saved as well. This allowed returning back to the beginning.

[Taffer36]

Ishtvan's idea sounds really cool if it could be implemented. I'm not too sure about waiting around for a few days though. Unless time went by super fast, waiting a few days might feel too long.

[Cyberwolf]

If things like day/night cycles were in effect enough to allow the player to wait around for days, adding windows of opportunity for certain missions could also be implemented, to put a limit on the amount of dawdling the player can do before failing, or making the mission much harder.

 

If that kind of interaction is implemented in the city hub, it would be possible to advance the entire campaign based on who the player talks to/events that happen inbetween missions.

[ZylonBane]

Those are the sort of concepts the belong in a sprawling RPG, not a mission-based game.

[Ishtvan]

Yes, as I said it's not really in the scope of TDM to do those things. You'd need a good dialogue system, and if you wanted to wait several days for something you'd need some way to condense time too, so it's more in the simulator / RPG area, not TDM.