Competition

[bob_arctor]

I loaded up my first TDS FM today to see how it was going, seeing as I am bored of vanilla TDS so returned to TII Fms, but wondered what I could be missing.

 

By chance my first FM I chose was The Bridge. Mostly because I thought of the Iain Banks book of that name, and bridges are cool. And The Bridge is cool.

 

Wow. Amazing stuff. Brickwork! Yay! It seems really big. It seems like the City. It seems like Thief II. It's ace.

 

Dunno if other TDS FMs are that good, but if they are do you think you are in trouble?

 

With the Minimalist project installed to give a great HUD and really rock-solid AI (Way better than TII on expert. Every door opened makes them say "did I hear something" and wander over. And no more standing 10 metres away under a light but unseen), and some better maps than Ion Storm's OMs TDS could be shaping up...

 

Mind you I'm still annoyed at the non-water, and the fact shooting an broadhead arrow into a wall makes no noise, meaning you can't distract the guards...

 

 

Seriously: Everyone should play the Bridge TDS FM. It's great.

 

But will it spell the end for TDM?????

 

Plus there is the ever dependable TII FM community, still going after all these years and doing interesting stuff. Will you be able to drag people away from their precious TII?

 

[devils advocate here to generate discussion]

[Gildoran]

From a technical standpoint, the D3 engine is better than TDS's. From a social standpoint... the nice thing about TDM is that it'll be open-source. In a few years D3 will likely be open-source. That means TDM could potentially be completely free to the Thief community to play and use. More importantly, it means we can continue to improve the engine. Also, editing for D3 is in many ways much easier than for TDS... it'll be possible to make a wider array of maps, with more interesting and customized behavior than what can be done in TDS.

 

Many wonderful maps will be made for TDS before TDM is finished, but I honestly believe that TDM is the future of the Thief community.

[sparhawk]

I doubt that T3Ed will be in a competition to TDM. If you look at the editing forum you can see that it is pretty dead. Contrary the Dromed forum is still bristling with live, so it's not the case that there is a dropdown of interest. It's simply that T3Ed has to many limitations, which TDM will fix. In the long run, I'm pretty sure that TDM will make it.

[Mark]

The Bridge is indeed an impressive work; kudos to the author. Unfortunately, after playing it I was reminded that the engine on which it runs is irretrievably flawed. Ten minutes into the mission I had to quit out of frustration, due primarily to the execrable, headache-inducing movement system.

 

You run and jump like a fat man in concrete shoes. You turn and maneuver like a drunken robot. You frequently have to mantle over anything that reaches up past your ankles (I dunno, this might be a clipping issue). You can't lean forward and your sideways "leans" are more like ghostly sidesteps. When you jump and/or fall from a height you seem to have about a 50/50 chance of getting stuck in that "float" mode where you have to reload to your last save. Turning around on a narrow surface is about as fluid and graceful an experience as executing a K-turn with an 18-wheeler.

 

I shouldn't have to fight the engine every time I move just to try to eke some enjoyment out of a well designed and executed fan mission. If I ever build up the motivation (and acquire anything approaching the requisite talent) to create a mission then it will be for the Dark Mod.

[Dram]

I'm sure you'll find it's very easy to make a map in Doom3, takes a bit more effort for a VERY good map, but yeah. The best thing is no friggin terrible movement etc. And graphics are smooth.

[Schatten]

I wonder why a bunch of people would stick together and force Thief mechanics on the D3 engine, when clearly Flesh and T3Ed are top-notch, flawless and slick.

 

I further do not see the point why DromEd veterans decide to wait for this abomination, instead of using the top-notch, flawless and slick tools they were given.

 

It is completely beyond me why former employees of Ion Storm would belittle Flesh as patchwork job - I mean, come on, just because they fired the guy who wrote it in the middle of developement!

 

The world is such a strange and irrational place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bob_arctor]

Well I found the problems with TDS movement were:

 

Jump-mantling into his secret areas was really hard.

 

The mouse is really sensitive and I can't find out where to change this. Probably only in the ini file.

 

Failing a mantle makes lots of noise (I have the Minimalist Project so AI is really good).

 

Urm. Quite a lot of getting stuck bugs. Although could be the FM objects.

 

But I got used to the movement overall. It’s okay. Barring the lean which I never use as it’s so bad.