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Is anyone else having problems playing through "Thief's Den?"


Nebrekker

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I'm embarrassed to confess this, but I am positively stuck on "Thief's Den." I've played through all the Looking Glass/Eidos episodes more than once. Is anyone else having problems playing through "Thief's Den?"

 

Is there a walk thru? There appear to be spoilers in the awesome "A to Z beginners tutorial by Fidcal". A walk thru would help me troubleshoot if there's some problem--such as a door failing to interact.

 

For that matter, wouldn't a good excercise for an aspiring mission editor be a simple in-game text Tutorial or walk-thru? I'd love to tackle this if I could learn to finish the mission!

Back to my original question. Am I the only one not able to play through a (seemingly) correct install of "Thief's Den?"

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Not all the doors are supposed to highlight; this is a very small map. What are you having trouble with? Where are you stuck?

My games | Public Service Announcement: TDM is not set in the Thief universe. The city in which it takes place is not the City from Thief. The player character is not called Garrett. Any person who contradicts these facts will be subjected to disapproving stares.
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  • 2 months later...

The only problem I had with Thief's Den (or rather Dark Mod) was blackjacking. I could not blackjack those AIs at all! I had to use my arrows. Well, I guess I have to practice a lot. ;)

Cartographer's Note FM: in production.

Download Old Comrades, Old Debts FM or Mistrz Effects demo and see my old projects!

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The early blackjacking depended on the correct "crosshair" aim when you hit the button, nothing to do with the appearance of the model actually hitting the head or not, a second later. The latter is being (has been?) implemented for much better gameplay accuracy.

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I like this new, portable source of light in Thief's Den - the lamp. It just seems rather odd that the player does not see the source of this light on the screen and can manipulate other large objects while holding the lamp.

 

I don't know if you considered introducing some cool 'hand with lamp' animation a la Hexen: Edge of Chaos... It could be great (2:30):

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fNbUBNWUAc

Edited by Bukary

Cartographer's Note FM: in production.

Download Old Comrades, Old Debts FM or Mistrz Effects demo and see my old projects!

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It just seems rather odd that the player does not see the source of this light on the screen and can manipulate other large objects while holding the lamp.

 

Well, you don't see the player 'holding' the lamp...do you? So obviously, he isn't holding it. The lamp is actually quite small, and attached to the players belt.

 

I don't know if you considered introducing some cool 'hand with lamp' animation a la Hexen: Edge of Chaos... It could be great (2:30):

 

Yes, we already tried the lamp with a 'cool' hand with lamp animation, but it introduced too many issues that we would have had to deal with...in addition to the ones related to weapons...or climbing ropes and ladders.

When taking out a weapon, does the lamp stay out...or disappear? If it disappears, does it stay lit...and if it's still lit does it go on the players belt? If it's on the players belt, why doesn't the player just leave it on there all the time...so his hands are free? Function...is more important than flash! If you ask me, having the lamp disappear everytime it was over ridden by another function would have been as equally annoying as the flashlight in doom 3. It was a useless tool until the duct tape mod, that attached it to the guns.

 

 

Seriously though...this is in no way a full sized lamp like you see in the Hexen video...it's small, and fits neatly onto the players belt. The player is simply lifting the shield that covers the lamp to reveal the flame so he can see. The amount of light cast by the lamp in Thief's Den is much larger than the current version, which is probably why you feel it's from larger lamp.

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Seriously though...this is in no way a full sized lamp like you see in the Hexen video...it's small, and fits neatly onto the players belt.

I understand. :) The model I was picking up in Thief's Den did not look like some belt lamp (too big). That's the source of confusion.

 

I still think it seems odd to carry such 'invisible' light source. I just need to get used to it. ;) Perhaps some light icon (when lamp is lit) at the bottom of the screen would do the job (I know, I know, you're HUD minimalist). :)

Cartographer's Note FM: in production.

Download Old Comrades, Old Debts FM or Mistrz Effects demo and see my old projects!

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Personally I found the lamp benig hold in the hand quite cool, because it really felt quite realistic and looked good.

That's exactly what I think.

 

But... wait... you mean you already had such animation in TDM and got rid of it?

Cartographer's Note FM: in production.

Download Old Comrades, Old Debts FM or Mistrz Effects demo and see my old projects!

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But... wait... you mean you already had such animation in TDM and got rid of it?

 

Yes, but in the end we went with flexibility and function over cosmetics.

 

There is an icon for the lamp, showing it lit and unlit...but it just depends how you activate it. If you cycle through your inventory items and hit the use key... you will see the lit/unlit icon, but if you use the 'hot-key' to turn it on, the icon won't pop up. The reason for this is because the lamp can stay unlit while you cycle away from it in the inventory. It's pretty obvious when the lamp is lit or unlit by the on screen activity....as your light gem shows as full bright.

 

I believe the reasons for not having the lamp carried on screen far outweighed the appearance/realism factors...and I don't believe it's any more realistic than carrying it on the players belt. In the beginning, I liked the idea of having it appear on screen, for the same reasons, but after playing with it for awhile...it became apparent that it was far better to have it clipped to the players belt. That's where it's going to go when you climb a ladder...so why not leave it there all the time? It's not like it serves any other purpose than to 'look good', unlike the player blackjack, sword and bow...which do serve other purposes. :)

 

In any case, that's our decision and we're sticking to it.

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In any case, that's our decision and we're sticking to it.

Of course. I just hope you did not throw everything you had (models, animations) into the wastebin. It would be great to have a possibility to use those in fanmissions. I hated flares ('invisible' on the screen) and loved e.g. vampyre blade from CL ('visible' light source).

 

And yes, it's all about 'looking good/cool' in this case. I don't see much problems with the lantern on the screen (it should disappear once the player throws his/her weapon out, climbs the ladder etc.). And it does look good. ;)

 

I understand that carrying some lamp on the belt is reasonable/realistic. But I do not like HUD elements that need to have some story behind and player has to figure it out (or not). ("Where has this lamp gone? Oh, it must be somewhere on my belt"). While playing Thief's Den I had no idea that the lamp is on my belt. Perhaps I am a moron.

 

The most realistic is not always equal to the most immersive/intersting/fun. I would love to play some horror mission with Hexen style lamp. Walking in the cementary with such lamp is much more stylish/immersive/stirring that walking with some circle of light below my feet. It would also add to the mission's difficulty. I don't think that Doom flashlight example is appropriate here. Thief is not Doom. The player does not have to walk with some light source all the time (for the purpose of aiming). If you want to see what's in that dark corner, hide your weapon. It might be more interesting than: press L for constant light and see what's in that dark corner.

 

Obviously, you're not going to change your decision. I guess you already had this hand lantern functional. Ideally, toolset user could make a choice for his/her particular needs: portable lantern or lantern at the belt. The toolset is all about choice, right? I just hope you will give us the choice. :)

 

Anyway, thanks for explaining this to me.

Edited by Bukary

Cartographer's Note FM: in production.

Download Old Comrades, Old Debts FM or Mistrz Effects demo and see my old projects!

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Obviously, you're not going to change your decision. I guess you already had this hand lantern functional. Ideally, toolset user could make a choice for his/her particular needs: portable lantern or lantern at the belt.

 

The lantern was fuctional, we tested it and deactivated it for the reasons above and a few others. It created too many special cases.

 

The toolset is all about choice, right? I just hope you will give us the choice. :)

 

Mainly, the toolset is about giving the community an editing suite that will ...for once...be open source. The lantern on screen works in some games, but for our purposes...it works far better as a non-intrusive off screen element. Our goal was to provide a small, intimate light source for the player and that has been accomplished. There is really no 'big' back story needed to explain the clipped on lantern. When we release the mod, there will be a small manual included...much like any other game, and it will state something like this... "player lantern - A small, hands free, hooded lantern that is clipped to the players belt". That doesn't mean mappers can't put special things like this into their missions, they can...but they'll be responsible for doing the work to fix all the issues that arise...and it's highly unlikely we'll ever add it to the main code base. Working out all the ticks and issues with the lantern would probably require some scripting/coding knowledge too.

 

In any case, our decision was highly motivated by gameplay issues...so please trust us on this.

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That doesn't mean mappers can't put special things like this into their missions, they can...but they'll be responsible for doing the work to fix all the issues that arise...and it's highly unlikely we'll ever add it to the main code base. Working out all the ticks and issues with the lantern would probably require some scripting/coding knowledge too.

I was just asking if you (in the future) could/will provide some mapper that wants to use such lantern with the assets that you already have (and some guidance). :)

 

In any case, our decision was highly motivated by gameplay issues...so please trust us on this.

I do trust you. You've almost finished great mod! I just wanted to know if you keep your abandoned ideas (and their 'material' form) if anyone wants to make some use of them. ;)

Cartographer's Note FM: in production.

Download Old Comrades, Old Debts FM or Mistrz Effects demo and see my old projects!

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Well, we're using SVN as our primary "storage facility", so the entire history is preserved. Every version of every file that has ever been in the repository is kept safe.

 

However, the two lantern approaches discussed here are quite different - it's not that you swap a line in the code and - behold! - the other lantern is there. There will be some scripting setup and maybe even code support necessary to get it working properly. The lantern we use is based on our inventory system, whereas the the lantern with the animation was basically a "weapon".

 

It's definitely possible, but it will require some work, just so that you're aware. :)

 

Also, allow me one word concerning "choices" and "toolset": of course it's nice to have many choices in the toolset and I'm all for it. We're constantly aiming to implement our features as flexible as humanly feasible. Beware though, that just because we're creating a toolset, we can't support every possible feature people might want to have (and believe me, people come up with an awful lot of ideas). We don't have the manpower to do that, especially when it comes to features that "overload" existing features. We're aiming to get one incarnation of the features done in the first place, before we can even start thinking about implementing a second variation of the same feature. That wouldn't be wise from a management point of view.

 

That being said, there is nobody stopping us from iterating over features or implementing more or better ones in the future. It's not like we're throwing out TDM 1.0 and head for the Maldive Islands - development will continue, bugs will need to be fixed, the editor wants to be improved, etc. We have an entire forum dedicated to "Future Features" where we are keeping all those ideas we'd love to see in the future but cannot implement right now due to time constraints.

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Obviously, you're not going to change your decision. I guess you already had this hand lantern functional.

 

It wasn't visible all the time like Hexen. There was an animation that showed the player's two hands reaching out to raise or lower the lantern when you turned it on/off, but they then pulled back. The rest of the time the lantern operated like it did now.

 

The problem with that animation, as NH mentioned, was that it didn't make sense to show the player's two hands reaching out to turn on the lantern in many situations where we actually wanted to allow the lantern to be used, like on ladders, ropes, with weapons drawn, etc.

 

As for whether the lantern is clipped on the belt all the time...it may or may not be. The player does plenty of things with his hands (like grabbing loot or opening doors) that we don't see. :)

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It wasn't visible all the time like Hexen. There was an animation that showed the player's two hands reaching out to raise or lower the lantern when you turned it on/off, but they then pulled back. The rest of the time the lantern operated like it did now.

 

That was not the lantern that I remembered. :) We had one where the arm was sticking out holding the lantern model in front of you, which looked really cool. I don't remember that we had animations of raising /lowering the lantern only to disapear afterwards.

Gerhard

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