Alot Of Topics

[Denny]

I've edited the post as I've already got some answers and there was threads even on the first page about them...... I've also shortened it down.

 

I also know there's alot of work behind this and that you guys would need more coders so take my opinions and suggestions with a bit of salt. I also know that this ain't a try on Thief48 but rather its own Steampunk-game. I'm mostly using Thief as an example in my topics below.

 

Shields

I read a thread about headshots and another about hitting armor would break the arrow. Wouldn't it add to the gameplay to give some of the guards shields?

I personally would love to see some guards with tower shields. Adds to the challange.

 

Water

I would love to see waterfalls, smaller or bigger. I don't care. Fountains adds to the atmosphere as well. I guess particle systems ain't the hardest part to mess around with with the game engines of today.

 

Stupid NPC's

What I hate about most games... Anyone who is a civilian is totally incapable of getting angry or offensive. They just run around in circles or to the nearest guard. Around the time of the metal age (or in a world similar to it) I don't think anyone would go around unarmed. Please, atleast give us some problems with civilians except that you have to take them down before they alert a guard.

 

Environments

Even though it's ideal to run out and loot in the middle of the night it's still not the only time a thief makes his move, nor the assassin. You know, undercover stuff might happen during the day. It would be fun to try in the daytime.

 

Environments 2

Will we see prefabs like waterwheels, signs (that goes further than Hammerites, pubs etc.) and other kinds of things that makes the environment more "lively"?.

 

AI behaviour (Guards)

Simply put, tell me the AI will atleast "try" to follow normal human logic when it comes to moving around in the environment?.... It's quite hard to program yes... But one thing about the Thief-series (atleast 1 & 2) was the intelligent AI (of its time). If you wanna make a game/mod similar to our beloved mother/father of the steampunk-series, the AI will be one of the most vital parts.

 

Modding the mod

Will you guys work on some kind of scripting language on top of the D3-engine, maybe there already is?. For example, if there's a default civilian and a default guard I might want to be able to make a hunter combined of them both (making my own models and voice to him/her). Is there any plans on giving FM-makers to make their own scripts to the mod? Not only the AI but perhaps their own items and such. (without going through a 257-step process)

Edited June 6, 2006 by Denny

[New Horizon]

For the amount of time you spent writing this up, you could have searched the forum and found the answers to the majority of your questions....and of course, the 'pain in the ass' would have been transfered to YOU and not US. We do have a mod to work on you know.

 

I don't have time to answer them all right now, but I will when I get a chance later this afternoon.

[Denny]

For the amount of time you spent writing this up, you could have searched the forum and found the answers to the majority of your questions....and of course, the 'pain in the ass' would have been transfered to YOU and not US. We do have a mod to work on you know.

 

I don't have time to answer them all right now, but I will when I get a chance later this afternoon.

 

I actually did some searching and did not find the answers.... The water topic was mostly if you would hold your breath and what not... As I said, I'm not that good at coming up with good search criterias.

 

Also I'm a fast typer so this didn't take long to type up, honestly.

[sparhawk]

Hey folks. I have so many topics in here that it would be a pure pain in the ass to search through the whole threads for each of them. Also my point of view and opinions might be a tad different so bare with me 'kay?

 

Sorry, but you have no time to search the forum, even though most of this stuff has already been answered a hundred times, and on the same page, we have no time to answer it point for point for the same reason.

 

Topic 7 - Modding the mod

I know you guys are aiming to make this a mod for other Steampunk-lovers to be able to make their own FM's. What I'm really interested in is to be able to remake AI behaviour or build further onto the mod without making it a new mod. Will you guys work on some kind of scripting language on top of the D3-engine (maybe there already is?)?. For example, if there's a default civilian and a default guard I might want to be able to make a hunter combined of them both (making my own models and voice to him/her). Is there any plans on giving FM-makers to make their own scripts to the mod? Not only the AI but perhaps their own items and such. (without going through a 257-step process)

 

If you want to rewrite the AI of course you can do that, but there will be no special kind of langauge or setup that we support. Everything that the AI dependens on can be done via scripting, and I see no point on adding additional code on top of this. If the AI can't something do you have to mod it in the SDK and export it to scripting. But I guess in most cases writing a few scripts should be sufficient. Depends on your individual needs though. Apart from that, there is no real limit to what you can do. If rather want a Splinter Cell kind of game, you can easily use TDM as your base, because many items are covered already by it. of course you would have to add your own textures and models as well as animations, but from the code itself, I guess the only thing missing would be the special moves (just an example as I haven't played SC much). You could also use the codebase and create standard Doom 3 maps with it, since this is also just different textures and models with animations if you don't like the steampunk setting.

[Dram]

Hello, and welcome to the forums

 

I'll try and answer a few of your questions:

 

I also know there's alot of work behind this and that you guys would need more coders so take my opinions and suggestions with a bit of salt. I also know that this ain't a try on Thief48 but rather its own Steampunk-game. I'm mostly using Thief as an example in my topics below.

 

If you liked Thief 1/2 (some parts of 3) then you'll like this mod Generally speaking we all loved Thief and are trying to recreate something similar in the D3 engine. Basically, we're making a Thief-ish mod for D3.

 

Either my memory is totally bullshit or I can't remember any Thief game (or similar in the genre) implement shields.... Will Darkmod do this? I mean, will the guards have shields? I read a thread about headshots and another about hitting armor would break the arrow. Wouldn't it add to the gameplay to give some of the guards shields?

 

I'm not sure if we discussed this on the dev forums but I think that if we added shields it would be a bit too much (it's bloody hard enough to hit the guard in the face etc with an arrow as it is).

 

Yes, I know you guys will add water to the game, but how will it look? Will it be Half-Life 1 style; a solid surface that randomly deformes. Half-Life 2 style; a solid brick with bumpmapping making it appear as water. Maybe it has both? I haven't seen water made in the Doom3 engine so I can't judge.

 

We don't have the random deformation water ala HL1 but we do have water like in HL2. The water effect atm looks very nice and because you'll be easily able to modify the textures etc, you can change the water to look different if you wish etc. Also, there's several types of water, or "liquids". You can easily make your own and this will be in a tutorial.

 

What I hate about most games... Anyone who is a civilian is totally incapable of getting angry or offensive. They just run around in circles like chickens or run to the nearest guard screaming "Help help, it's teh taffer trying to kill me lolz!!!11½½". Around the time of the metal age (or in a world similar to it) I don't think anyone would go around unarmed. It wasn't the most safe time in history don't you think?

 

While most people did have swords or whatever in the medieval ages, to see a thief suddenly pop out in front of you is very unnerving, plus he might look like an assassin to you, so you might just get scared shitless. Otherwise, it might be law that no swords to be worn in the street, who knows?

 

Also, if we would ever see some kind of blacksmith... Don't you think he'll grab one of his own creations and swing away?

 

In Thief 1/2 there were the Hammerites, which forged their own hammers etc. They also DO swing their creations at you

 

In the DarkMod, the similar faction is Builders.

 

Please, atleast give us some problems with civilians except that you have to take them down before they alert a guard.

 

While we are making a campaign later on, we're first releasing a toolset, so it'll be up to FM authors to create levels. So it's up to the FM maker to decide what happens

 

Though we will release a few sample maps to try out an play.

 

Even though it's ideal to run out and loot in the middle of the night it's still not the only time a thief makes his move, nor the assassin. You know, undercover stuff might happen during the day. Will we be able to make our own missions during daytime? I would like to give it a try. (You know, Quake4 made some decent outdoor lit areas so performance ain't that bad with the D3 engine?)

 

I'd love to see some daytime missions, but again, it's up to FM authors to make missions once the toolset comes out

 

What made me quite... Bored... With the Thief-series was that each area was... Well, an area. If you was in a town, it was a town, nothing more. What I just said sounds stupid but let me elaborate. If you go around in a town you should be able to see more specific things like; "there's a blacksmith" "there's a bakery" and "there's a mill" without reading on the friggin' sign. Will we see prefabs like waterwheels, signs (that goes further than Hammerites, pubs etc.) and other kinds of things that makes the environment more "lively"?.

 

Yet again dependant on the FM creator, though we will provide a vast variety of meshes etc that you can use, such as wheelbarrows, etc. It is very easily possible to make a large city map though, so you can easily have several missions happen in the same map.

 

Will guards still be as blind as in Thief. Although your in a light area they won't be able to see you if you're more than 50 meters away. Also, are you guys able to fix the silouette problem? I mean, a human can logically see something in the dark if it covers a light far away making a silouette visible.

 

With the sillhouette, don't know how feasible it is or not.

 

The guards' acuity also depends on difficulty, so if you choose Expert, expect nasty surprises >

 

Also, if we'll see some kind of ladder... Don't tell me the suckers will run around below and not understand how to climb up?

 

Well we discussed this problem and I believe we came to the conclusion that AI will not climb ladders because it would be a bad idea (in their mind), such as the Thief can wait at the top and kill the guard as he climbs up. There were arguments for it of course, but I think the main issue was balancing it, so we decided against it.

 

Simply put, tell me the AI will atleast "try" to follow normal human logic when it comes to moving around in the environment?.... It's quite hard to program yes... But one thing about the Thief-series (atleast 1 & 2) was the intelligent AI (of its time). If you wanna make a game/mod similar to our beloved mother/father of the steampunk-series, the AI will be one of the most vital parts.

 

Expect better then Thief AI >

 

I know you guys are aiming to make this a mod for other Steampunk-lovers to be able to make their own FM's. What I'm really interested in is to be able to remake AI behaviour or build further onto the mod without making it a new mod. Will you guys work on some kind of scripting language on top of the D3-engine (maybe there already is?)?. For example, if there's a default civilian and a default guard I might want to be able to make a hunter combined of them both (making my own models and voice to him/her). Is there any plans on giving FM-makers to make their own scripts to the mod? Not only the AI but perhaps their own items and such. (without going through a 257-step process)

 

The mod will be open-source, so you'll be able to mod in whatever you like. Though it's of course limited to free projects, so you can't make money from our free work

 

 

 

 

Hope that answers it all for you

[Dram]

fucken hell....wtf is up with the quotes?

[Denny]

Okay, sorry times infinity. I made a bad appearance there. It was just that the search function didn't quite end up with the same result. I do know now that three-four of the topics were already answered on... Yes, the first page. XD

 

Still, thanks for the answers.

[Dram]

Still, thanks for the answers.

 

No problem

 

EDIT: AARGH, so NOW the quote works....

[Denny]

If you liked Thief 1/2 (some parts of 3) then you'll like this mod Generally speaking we all loved Thief and are trying to recreate something similar in the D3 engine. Basically, we're making a Thief-ish mod for D3.

Nice, I was personally not a fan of the third game in the series (excluding gold). Something about it didn't feel like Thief to me. ^^;

 

I'm not sure if we discussed this on the dev forums but I think that if we added shields it would be a bit too much (it's bloody hard enough to hit the guard in the face etc with an arrow as it is).

Maybe an expert difficulty feature? > Otherwise I might wait for the mod to be released and add it myself if I must have it.

 

We don't have the random deformation water ala HL1 but we do have water like in HL2. The water effect atm looks very nice and because you'll be easily able to modify the textures etc, you can change the water to look different if you wish etc. Also, there's several types of water, or "liquids". You can easily make your own and this will be in a tutorial.

How would displacement work on water? How will moving fluids look like? Perhaps we'll have to make an animated model, passable and animated?

 

While most people did have swords or whatever in the medieval ages, to see a thief suddenly pop out in front of you is very unnerving, plus he might look like an assassin to you, so you might just get scared shitless. Otherwise, it might be law that no swords to be worn in the street, who knows?

Yeah, I know what you mean.

 

In Thief 1/2 there were the Hammerites, which forged their own hammers etc. They also DO swing their creations at you

 

In the DarkMod, the similar faction is Builders.

That's not exactly what I thought of. These are a part of a faction, not civilians. The Hammerites forged hammers and stuff for themselves, they were trained for combat as well.

 

I thought if you met a blacksmith in the city. Anyway, it was just an example.

 

I'd love to see some daytime missions, but again, it's up to FM authors to make missions once the toolset comes out

So daytime is there as an option by default in the D3 engine?

 

The guards' acuity also depends on difficulty, so if you choose Expert, expect nasty surprises >

I love nasty surprises. It gives some "action" to the tension. ;P

 

Well we discussed this problem and I believe we came to the conclusion that AI will not climb ladders because it would be a bad idea (in their mind), such as the Thief can wait at the top and kill the guard as he climbs up. There were arguments for it of course, but I think the main issue was balancing it, so we decided against it.

 

Expect better then Thief AI >

Ah, stupid me. Why didn't I think of that. Yes, I'm expecting alot from this mod, that's why I'm being a little criticizing pain in the ass. >: )

 

The mod will be open-source, so you'll be able to mod in whatever you like. Though it's of course limited to free projects, so you can't make money from our free work

Hope that answers it all for you

Of course I won't try to earn money from it. Would break alot of copyright laws. xD (not only yours but ID software's as well)

Edited June 6, 2006 by Denny

[sparhawk]

fucken hell....wtf is up with the quotes?

 

Quotes wont work work if the message exceeds a certain size.

[sparhawk]

After the engine is GPLed you COULD sell work based on it. But even then TDM will be limited to non-commercial projects nevertheless. The GPL doesn't make rules about selling, only about source.

[Denny]

After the engine is GPLed you COULD sell work based on it. But even then TDM will be limited to non-commercial projects nevertheless. The GPL doesn't make rules about selling, only about source.

I don't think the engine will be GPLed in the nearest future. Just see how long time it took for the engine behind Duke Nukem to become GPLed. ^^;

[sparhawk]

Duke Nukem is not developed by Id. Id engines are usually GPLed when the last licensed game is finished. Carmack already announced that the D3 engine will be GPLed after the next game. Since this has been said last year, it would give a timeframe of another 2-4 yours at most IMO. Not really THAT long I would say, considering how long it takes for other companies. Most never do.

[Denny]

Ah, sorry for being uninformed about ID's plans. I do know Duke Nukem was developed by 3drealms. It was just an example.

[Ishtvan]

Re: Shields

 

It wouldn't be that believable for guards to be carrying around huge tower shields while on guard duty in someone's house, but you might see something smaller like bucklers and vambraces. (Also, tower shields interfere enough with regular animations that you'd have to make a whole new set of animations for them, which you're welcome to do, but we might not have time for )

[Denny]

Re: Shields

 

It wouldn't be that believable for guards to be carrying around huge tower shields while on guard duty in someone's house, but you might see something smaller like bucklers and vambraces. (Also, tower shields interfere enough with regular animations that you'd have to make a whole new set of animations for them, which you're welcome to do, but we might not have time for )

 

The tower shield one wasn't a 100% serious comment. But sure, I might give it a try when Darkmod is released.

[Springheel]

If you can do animations, why not help us GET to the release?

[Dram]

Nice, I was personally not a fan of the third game in the series (excluding gold). Something about it didn't feel like Thief to me. ^^;

 

Yes, pretty much all of us did'nt like Thief 3 either. It was unfinished and consolized.

 

How would displacement work on water? How will moving fluids look like? Perhaps we'll have to make an animated model, passable and animated?

 

Currently the water looks quite realistic, with reflection and distortion etc

 

That's not exactly what I thought of. These are a part of a faction, not civilians. The Hammerites forged hammers and stuff for themselves, they were trained for combat as well.

 

I thought if you met a blacksmith in the city. Anyway, it was just an example.

 

Ahh, I see what you mean Well in that case it depends on the FM creator then

 

So daytime is there as an option by default in the D3 engine?

 

Have you seen the D3 maps that are on the surface of mars? It's daytime and looks very much like day Afternoon, but day nonetheless.

 

In any case, you can easily open up a map in D3ED and change the lights to be bright as day etc. There's no problems with BSP holes in D3 either, so recompiling a map a billion times will either always have the same error (if there is one) or never.

 

ie: you could open up one of our maps and mess with everything and recompile it no probs.

Of course I won't try to earn money from it. Would break alot of copyright laws. xD (not only yours but ID software's as well)

 

I was'nt aiming it at you, I was just generally saying We're making a EULA for DarkMod to specifically make all assets that are used in DarkMod to be allowed to be used freely by the public. For example: A modeller creates a super-awesome chair, he uses it in a FM he makes and releases to public. Anyone wishing to use it afterwards will not need to ask permission (legally speaking, not morally). Basically, the modeller cannot go and say "that's my model and you can't use it". Basically, we provide the mod freely, so if you use it you can't deny the Thief community things either You can still sell the model you make anywhere of course, just you're not allowed to deny it to the DarkMod FM makers

[Denny]

If you can do animations, why not help us GET to the release?

There's a matter of skills involved in the calculation. Sure I could help you but you don't want pure crap? Also I suck somewhat at animation so......

 

I've applied to a school which I'm getting a reply from soon. The pupils going there are allowed to play around with... MoCap. Who knows, I "might" help out if I'm allowed to use it for this mod. Well, if there is time. We have to make 3 different working demo's in one and a half year's time.

 

ie: you could open up one of our maps and mess with everything and recompile it no probs.

I was'nt aiming it at you, I was just generally saying We're making a EULA for DarkMod to specifically make all assets that are used in DarkMod to be allowed to be used freely by the public. For example: A modeller creates a super-awesome chair, he uses it in a FM he makes and releases to public. Anyone wishing to use it afterwards will not need to ask permission (legally speaking, not morally). Basically, the modeller cannot go and say "that's my model and you can't use it". Basically, we provide the mod freely, so if you use it you can't deny the Thief community things either You can still sell the model you make anywhere of course, just you're not allowed to deny it to the DarkMod FM makers

Sounds awesome.

Edited June 7, 2006 by Denny

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

An FM with shields was made by that German chick, I believe. Lord Ashton's, or something. They were just for decor. Spar, how do you know so much detail about the forum engine?

[sparhawk]

What forum engine? Do you know about the quotes? I also experienced this, and then I test it. Just take a normal postings where the quotes are shown. Then copy the text again and again. After some time the quotes stop working without reason.