After Dm Is Done

[Ishtvan]

It's incredibly fun to pick locks hehe. You can't buy lockpicks here in Au though, so I had to make my own. Each took friggin 3 hours.

 

Did you use a grinding wheel or file them by hand?

[Dram]

By hand. My hands were actually blistered as I made 3 in one hit (rake, snake and triangular tooth). So about 9 hours. But IMO it was worth it. Once I got locked out of my house by accident as I had forgotten my keys but ironically I had my lockpicks (go figure ). I would'nt have picked my door and would have waited for my brother to get home but my dog was crying behind the door and I could'nt stand it, it's heartbreaking lol. So I picked my door.

[mike mayday]

Speaking of ghosting, guards noticing that their friends are missing would really encourage players to refrain from blackjacking the whole level (like I used to do).

Is it possible to include various levels of cautiousness? Like this:

1)Another boring night, well, maybe one torch got spent

2)Hmmm... Three spent torches and Benny is gone somewhere. Weird. I'd better look out.

3)Hot damn, Benny and Lawrence are gone and the "spent" torches are damp! What the hell?! Smithy! I'm pretty sure we've got an intruder here!

 

The higher the level, the more "paranoic" the guards should get. So if normally he would just say "Thought I saw/heard something...", on level 2, he'd stroll to the place just in case, and on level 3 he'd start actively searching.

 

EDIT: Heh, Dram, how thoughtful of you to carry lockpicks and forget the keys

Edited June 29, 2006 by mike mayday

[Maximius]

You can buy a simple five key lockpick set in the U.S. for around 10$ off the net, plus a little book that explains the basics. Its fun to tool around with old locks and stuff. The professional kits are pretty amazing, some have dozens of different picks plus crazy stuff for opening payphone/vending machine cylinder style locks.

[Maximius]

EDIT: Heh, Dram, how thoughtful of you to carry lockpicks and forget the keys

 

 

A true-blue fan of the First Person Sneaker genre!

 

Or a nerd!

 

Probably both.

 

[Dram]

A true-blue fan of the First Person Sneaker genre!

 

Or a nerd!

 

The former

[Maximius]

The former

 

 

No doubt sir, forgive a foolish joke. Its my way of saying Hi.

[Komag]

No one here is a nerd, no way man

[mike mayday]

How quickly things run off-topic around here... (')_(').

 

Seriously. Guards noticing that their friends are missing FTW.

 

It should be implemented in the main release, not scripted. So there should be a feature that would allow the map-maker to mark "neighbours" of a guard (mark which guards get suspicious when a given guard is knocked-out, killed).

[New Horizon]

It should be implemented in the main release, not scripted.

 

Oh should it? Well, as always...the door is open for you to come in and code it. Seriously, if we're able to get it in there, we will....but please try to limit the 'it should' remarks, you may end up feeling the blunt end of the wrath stick from our already over worked coders.

[Gildoran]

Yeah, a lot of this is the type of stuff we want to have. But for now we're just worried about having the most basic, simple core things that are absolutely necessary for gameplay. Improvements like that may have to wait until after the first release.

[mike mayday]

I don't care when. Well, basically it would be nice to have this kinda stuff in your campaign.

 

It's just that you guys keep saying "If you want something, you're more than welcome to code it in yourself, or script it up in a given mission"

a)many of us are not coders

b)I'd have to go through every FM in the editor which would spoil the fun

c)I'm really looking forward to helping you with the texturing job, guys.

 

<3

Edited June 30, 2006 by mike mayday

[Maximius]

I don't care when. Well, basically it would be nice to have this kinda stuff in your campaign.

 

It's just that you guys keep saying "If you want something, you're more than welcome to code it in yourself, or script it up in a given mission"

a)many of us are not coders

B)I'd have to go through every FM in the editor which would spoil the fun

c)I'm really looking forward to helping you with the texturing job, guys.

 

<3

 

 

Mike your ideas are good but you should know that they have been discussed already time and again before you joined the list. I myself started a thread on the topic a while back.

[Maximius]

No one here is a nerd, no way man

 

It was a friendly jab, honest, Dram's my main man. I was just bored at work and looking to make trouble.

[mike mayday]

Mike your ideas are good but you should know that they have been discussed already time and again before you joined the list. I myself started a thread on the topic a while back.

 

I've just discovered it a few minutes ago... grumble grumble grumble...

[Komag]

I should've added some sort of smiley... what I meant was that we are ALL nerds around here, duh!

[Gildoran]

It's just that you guys keep saying "If you want something, you're more than welcome to code it in yourself, or script it up in a given mission"

a)many of us are not coders

B)I'd have to go through every FM in the editor which would spoil the fun

I don't mean to sound rude... it's just that we already have our hands full right now and I'm trying to emphasize that if something is left out of the mod, it's not the end of the world. Somebody can code it after release, and if everybody likes it, it can be added to the official version. Or if most people don't like it, it doesn't prevent a single mapper from using it.

[Dram]

It was a friendly jab, honest, Dram's my main man. I was just bored at work and looking to make trouble.

 

Don't worry, I got it straight off

 

I should put you into one of the missions on one of the "wanted" posters hehe..

[bob_arctor]

I thought there were AI responses meeting at least what TDS did. Which was I think to have non-scripted guards noticing other guards missing....

 

Or it could have been scripts.

 

Anyhow what AI stims have you got in at the moment? Sound and vision obviously. Missing loot? Doused torches?

[SneaksieDave]

From the subject and some of the posts following, it has become clear that many have no idea just how large a project like this is.

[Maximius]

I should've added some sort of smiley... what I meant was that we are ALL nerds around here, duh!

 

 

BTW thanks for your work in the past, it was extremely helpful although I didnt use Dromed or T3ED for very long.

[New Horizon]

I thought there were AI responses meeting at least what TDS did. Which was I think to have non-scripted guards noticing other guards missing....

 

Or it could have been scripts.

 

Anyhow what AI stims have you got in at the moment? Sound and vision obviously. Missing loot? Doused torches?

 

Unless we suddenly get an influx of help from within or outside the community, we're not going to make any hard core promises for the first release. Yes, we want to meet the present standard and improve on it if we can...but realistically, we don't know if we have the time or the help to get it done in a reasonable amount of time. Our coders have full time committments outside the mod, they don't have the luxury of being paid to work on Dark Mod for 12 to 14 hour days with over time. Some of us have families as well.

 

Moving into year two, I think we have proven that we're not leaving...but what the final result of what the community gets to play with, in the end, is going to hinge on how willing the Thief community is to come in and support us with some actual elbow grease. I 'know' there are talented coders, texture artists, and mappers in the classic Thief community. If a few more of them can offer us some time, we'll see even greater things come of this mod...if not, it will still be great...but perhaps not as feature complete as we would like. Seriously, everyone here is working extremely hard to get things done.

[bob_arctor]

I'll help with textures! Look see, http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?showt...=1878&st=50 I will make you textures! No maps or anything, but I can help in some way.

 

The ones I made today are remincent of Thief Gold. A bit like the floor in http://www.mindplaces.com/darkmod/screen24.jpg.

 

(I felt a "noes! I am guilty and must help these poor burdened people!" I just really want TDM to be as good as possible).

 

And I will learn to map. Ordered D3.

 

I'm no programmer though.

[sparhawk]

No problem. Texturing is one of the most important areas, because there we have a big lack. Well, we also could use some animators, modelers and sound guys.

[Maximius]

No problem. Texturing is one of the most important areas, because there we have a big lack. Well, we also could use some animators, modelers and sound guys.

 

 

A question, O Master Geometer. I realize that the TDMs standards are very high but I have a proposition that may be useful. If there are modelling jobs that a novice could cut his or her teeth on, say a bucket and mop set or bushes, something relatively simple, and something that could be done in Blender, I would be willing to try my hand. This would be a great way for fans to a. learn some design skills, b. get involved in a project they love in a way thats realistic and do-able but which does not subtract from the professional quality of the project, c. could take away some of the drudge work from the experts so they can concentrate on the really tough parts.

 

And even if the models are too hard for a beginners work to make the cut, is it possible that a beginner could get a project started and then pass off the work to a pro for finishing/polishing? Say I model a broom, it looks kinda weak but then I hand it off to someone else who takes my foundation and cleans it up. If three others would sign up for this perhaps we could shave a chunk of time off of the modelling schedule.

 

All this being said I have to still crack open Blender and toy with it. I may be totally unrealistic as I know nothing about modelling.