Npc Armor And Headshots?

[sparhawk]

Excuse me? Sorry, but that ticks me off a little bit. This is a Thief inspired toolset, and we appreciate fan input, but I personally don't appreciate people coming into our forums with an agenda and trying to force us to incorporate ideas, that we've already discussed and voted down years ago, in hopes of just being able to walk in after we've done all the hard work...just so you can 'test' some ideas.

 

I think you are to agitated, calm down. From my point of view I don't see a problem with that. Nobody is forcing us and if the ideas match up for us, why not? We want to improve the Thief gameplay and it doesn't really matter which agenda some idea follows, because we evaluate it in the context of our needs. Since we said that the code will be open we can not prevent it to be used for other games, an din fact I think it would be good, because this means that we can benefit of it as well. And if my code is reused in other games as well, I'm all the more happy because it means that it is good code and can be reused. In fact I have at least three different games in mind, which I would like to develop later on, where the TDM code is a much better starting point then the Doom 3 SDK code.

 

The Doom 3 SDK is openly available...and for that matter, the full Quake 3 source code is now available. You could gather your own team and create the technology by rewriting the engine with your own team...instead of pushing ideas on us. We've got a big enough workload without this crap.

 

Why should he do that? When I want to write something new, I also look for existing free code that matches my needs as closely as possible. If the TDM code already implements half of his requirements, why would he start from scratch? That isn't really realistic, is it?

 

Sorry, I don't mean to be rude...but it really upsets me.

 

Ah, don't take it personally. You could get wrinkles from it.

[sparhawk]

There should be no body related goals, but if there are, dragging should be sufficient.

 

Find my daughter, who was kidnapped by X, and bring her back to me. Seems a plausible objective to me. Why not? and if that means you have to drag here because she is injured, that also doesn't sound unrealistic IMO.

 

If the body gets stuck, that isn't unrealistic - if you are dragging a body in RL you should expect it to repeatedly get snagged on things.

 

Getting completely stuck is not very realistic. In real life you can easily get around that, and I doubt there would be many instances where you could get so stuck that you can not proceed anymore. In a game this doesn't have to be so, because of engine restrictions.

 

Sure it would be an abstraction, but not such a silly one a shouldering.

 

Why exactly would shouldering be silly? It is a realistic option.

 

Hostage taking amost always fails as a strategy for theft, almost all hostage takers have been captured and/or killed as a result of their stupidity.

 

There are two kinds of hostage taking. If you confront directly the forces with your hostages, you most likely will fail. In such cases as this, where the hostages are indirectly used, I would expect a much higher success rate. The problem of directly taking hostages is the time when the money is handed over.

 

You are starting to sound like one of those naysayers, like the people who thought that if you traveled too fast in a steam train that you would die, or that it was impossible to break the sound barrier. Come on.

 

 

It is getting easier and easier to create open ended, free form games that have few set ways of completing them.

 

I doubt that. Most games are boring if they have no story, and IMO it is harder to create an open ended game with story. That's the major reason why all major brands like to focus on heavily scripted games. to keep control over the story. Games are easier to control if they are more like a movie where you watch from start to end with no real option to change anything. Obvioulsy this depends on the type of game as well.

 

There are a crop of games due for release soon that completely refute most of your naysaying, "it can't be done" "it is no fun" "no professional game dev would do that" nonsense.

 

That's why I always maintain the point that we should investigate ourselve to see what is possible. I don't know how often I have heard 'This or that is not possible' and still found a way around it. Even for the lightgem I was told from an ID dev that this will not be possible and it will be to slow and yet it works. I also know the reason why they said it. They are considering it from a rather narrow perspective which is a direct result of their training. My approach to the lightgem was born out of necessity, but any professional developer would never have considered this as a valid approach because it wastes a lot of CPU just to get it done. Domarius is undergoing the same training and it really shows in this comments, because he harps the same tune that he learned, which is not his fault, because this is what he learned after all. But you have to think outside this box to make non-generic games, and this is not easily supported in professional game development, because it poses a risk to shareholders and market acceptance. If LGS would have thought the same, thief would never have been done, though.

 

@Springheel: If you want assistance with mapping, story, in-game readables, modelling (but not character modelling, I'm crap at that) textures, sound design I might be able to help, although I probably won't have a much time for another 4 months or so, I have other projects on the boil. IIRC, I offered to do readables a while back, but there seemed to be a lack of interest in that.

 

Readables are not really something we need, because we are not doing a campaing. And writing a readable is pretty easy and has to be highly focussed on a mission. What use is a generic readable? Sufre we could provide some very generic readables, like shopping lists or such, but their use would be limited, and it would take a mapper only a few minutes to come with something like that anyway. Textures is quite another issue though. This would be very welcome.

[Domarius]

Domarius is undergoing the same training and it really shows in this comments, because he harps the same tune that he learned, which is not his fault, because this is what he learned after all.

Sorry Spar, but you know sweet F.A. about my "training", so you have absolutely no clue what I'm parroting and what I've experienced myself. Therefore your statement is nothing more than a personal attack, and a completely unprovoked one at that.

 

The fact is, I don't say anything is true unless I've seen it or done it myself.

 

If you want to throw curt and offensive statements like that around, you need to back them up. That is, if you want to retain any shred of credibility of course. So tell me - what is your problem with what I've been saying? Explain yourself please.

[oDDity]

This is the worst thing about a dev team that's scattered around the planet. If we were all in an office, you could just roll your sleeves up and go at it until one of you were incapacitated, unconscious, or dead, but here you have to drag everything out for ages with a war of words.

[Domarius]

Yeah fuck it. He can say what he wants. If he needs to make unfounded personal attacks to feel like a big man, so be it. Everyone knows he doesn't know any better.

 

Stick a fork in me, I'm done here.

 

In fact I think I'll go back to not taking part in off topic discussions anymore. It used to be fun, but with Spar around it generally turns into a dick swinging match.

[sparhawk]

Sorry Spar, but you know sweet F.A. about my "training", so you have absolutely no clue what I'm parroting and what I've experienced myself. Therefore your statement is nothing more than a personal attack, and a completely unprovoked one at that.

 

I don't know your particular training, but I can see your statements, and they are the same that you can also read in professional game developers magazines, sites and other sources of information.

 

The fact is, I don't say anything is true unless I've seen it or done it myself.

 

That is undisputed. I believe you that. But that doesn't mean that nothing else exists. I did not undergo this training and coming from a totally different school of thinking, that's why I don't accept all schoolauthority statements as facts.

 

So tell me - what is your problem with what I've been saying? Explain yourself please.

 

It has already explained, and I frequently had discussions with you abuot that, so why should I start to rehash this now?

[Dram]

OMFG....

 

This is the worst thing about a dev team that's scattered around the planet. If we were all in an office, you could just roll your sleeves up and go at it until one of you were incapacitated, unconscious, or dead, but here you have to drag everything out for ages with a war of words.

 

As long as none of them storm out angry and disappear forever I guess it does'nt matter. At least they won't need to spend money on hospital bills cos of broken noses - that's the advantage of a worldwide team lol.

 

 

But anyways, guys - just drop it. Just face it - you two have varying opinions and will never convince the other of your own. Simple. No need to blabber on about it.

[OrbWeaver]

This is the worst thing about a dev team that's scattered around the planet. If we were all in an office, you could just roll your sleeves up and go at it until one of you were incapacitated, unconscious, or dead, but here you have to drag everything out for ages with a war of words.

 

In an office environment it probably wouldn't happen anyway, because people tend to just laugh things off. It is always a problem with remote collaboration based on written communications that people get more riled up than in real life, because arguments in text form come across as more formal and uncompromising.

[Maximius]

In an office environment it probably wouldn't happen anyway, because people tend to just laugh things off. It is always a problem with remote collaboration based on written communications that people get more riled up than in real life, because arguments in text form come across as more formal and uncompromising.

 

 

True I think. People are much quicker to say things in emails and letters that they would hesitate to say in person. When you are in physical proximity to someone else, there are also a dozen little non-spoken messages being transmitted, i.e. expression, body stance, breathing rate, that of course you dont see at a distance and therefore dont factor into your message.

[sparhawk]

I often have met people after they first met me on internet, and the consensus is that I'm exactly the same person in direct confrontation that my virtual personality represents. So you can expect typically the same statments from me, when you meet me in person or via email.

[New Horizon]

Ok, time to stop freaking out the viewing public with our boorish behaviour. Take it inside boys.

[Ishtvan]

This is the worst thing about a dev team that's scattered around the planet. If we were all in an office, you could just roll your sleeves up and go at it until one of you were incapacitated, unconscious, or dead, but here you have to drag everything out for ages with a war of words.

 

Yet another justification for the TDM Corporate jet!

[obscurus]

Oh jeez, I didn't mean to start WW3...

 

Look, I just made the assumption, that since you

a ) are promoting TDM as a freely available toolkit for making stealth based games and

b ) have a public forum where non-contributing parties may discuss the mod, that there was an implicit invitation for ideas, comments, suggestions and criticisms, which I have obviously been making.

 

Now if I am wrong in that respect, it begs the question as to why you have a public forum at all, after all, if you have discussed it all internally and made final decisions, discussing things on a public forum would seem to be a waste of your time, and you might as well close the public forums and just post progress updates on the website.

 

And as Sparhawk says, why would I wan't to go through the process of putting a team together and starting my own project from scratch when there is a free toolkit in development which looks like it will fulfil most of my needs? And since you appear to be inviting public input, why wouldn't I make suggestions for things that would mean less work for me? I don't expect you to follow them up, but it would be nice if there was some serious discussion, not out of hand dismissal, or deliberate misinterpretation of what I am suggesting to avoid a properly considered response.

 

@Domarius, at the risk of causing you a great deal of offense (and I promise you I don't mean to, I really have nothing against you personally), I have to agree with Sparhawk in so far as to say that you do come across as someone who has been formally educated in the creative arts, and it has been my experience that this type of education instills a certain mindset that does come across in your comments. I dropped out of a Fine Arts degree and switched to Science very quickly when I realised how quickly the formal Artistic education was eroding my creativity and ability to think outside the box. This type of education teaches you The Way as though you could formally define artistic works using a formula. this is why most of art, music and computer games come across to me as being formulaic.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that a formal education in Game Design (for example) is inherently bad, just that it teaches you a certain skills at the expense of some other skills, which are often more important for certain endevaours than the ones you may have been taught.

 

I'm not saying that this applies to you, I don't know you, but I can only go on what you have written in these forums, and all I'm saying is, your comments are consistent with a certain school of thought which I have some difficulties with.

Edited May 30, 2006 by obscurus

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

because arguments in text form come across as more formal and uncompromising.

 

On the contrary, text arguments tend to be taken unemotionally, as if they don't concern the person, but in an office every little comment makes one think "is the person trying to attack me? what's his motivation? what facial expression and words should I use as a response? God, I wish it was acceptable to just continue working with a blank face in an office like it is online."

[ZylonBane]

On the contrary, text arguments tend to be taken unemotionally, as if they don't concern the person

You're new to this whole "internet" thing, aren't you?

[sparhawk]

have nothing against you personally), I have to agree with Sparhawk in so far as to say that you do come across as someone who has been formally educated in the creative arts, and it has been my experience that this type of education instills a certain mindset that does come across in your comments.

 

This is exactly what I tried to say. If this is already considered as a personal insult or slander or whatever I can't do much about it, but it seems that I'm not the only one who sees this tendency.

[Dunedain]

Relax guys, it's just a discussion about varying ideas on game design and different perspectives

that one can use to look at how to solve game design problems. Nothing should be taken

personally, we're all Thief fans here.

 

The example of the guy from id thinking that the light gem wouldn't work, or would be far too slow,

is interesting. To his way of thinking, this would be just way too costly to ever make work. But it

turns out there is a way to make it work without slowing the game to a crawl. But you have to think

of clever methods to make it work, and be willing to allocate how ever much processing power is

required to the mechanism to make it function properly.

[sparhawk]

The example of the guy from id thinking that the light gem wouldn't work, or would be far too slow,

is interesting. To his way of thinking, this would be just way too costly to ever make work.

 

That's exactly my piont. In the traditional game developers mind, somethingl ike that MIGHT be considered, but never developed because EVERBODY can immediately see that this will never work and will be to slow.

 

In such cases I always prefer to cite Micheal Abrash who is a really briliant programmer. "Optimizing can not be done via sheets on paper. You always have to test it and see wether something is faster or not." (Paraphrased by myself).

 

Whatever somebody tells you "Who definitely knows it" can be wrong.