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Irenices

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I've just woken up from a dream.

 

I was in a dark castle, sneaking up on a guard with my blackjack. He heard me and turned around so I was forced to draw my sword and fight. It turned out to be Skeletor in full chain mail and the only place to hit him was right in the face. I was even using the correct mouse movements.  :laugh:

 

I hold you guys responsible.

 

 

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Hi, I am Gabriel Pradiipaka (a pseudonym), the one who translated the awesome FM "Ominous Bequest" into Spanish in 2004. I have been a huge fan of the Thief franchise from the very start. When I installed TDM, I thought it would be full of glitches due to the immense scope of possible configurations, lack of betatesting and the like. When the Training Mission didn't start, oh God, "my thought was confirmed" I thought to myself. Anyway, I came here and got the solution (disable Catalyst AI). I did so and the Training Mission started. I was plenty of time there by adjusting my old good skills to the new system. Object manipulation really impressed me as well as lockpicking (my ears worked so subtlely). Some time trying to take out that damn candle from the cage :laugh: till I could catch the mechanics of the clicks to manipulate the object. Very good.

 

The graphics are very fine, but the thing that impressed me most was the atmosphere when I started my "first FM" (Patent dangerous). I am still making my way, but I can guarantee that this mod produces real Thief games (oh yes, it is copyrighted by Eidos :rolleyes:). Even Thief 3 couldn't convince me that it was a "real Thief game". But, just starting my first FM and feeling the same "old good" stress I felt with Thief and Thief 2 (the guards, the night, the shadows, the dangers, the loot and all those good things). Congratulations TDM team, you have made "a winner". Brilliant, all round!!

 

Suggestion: Post your photos (not only your names). I want to know your faces. I have always thought that the devs should be absolutely "public" and "high-profiled". They are artists and deserve credit for that.

 

Thank you so much for all the endless hours of fun "I will have in my future".

Edited by GabrielSans

The sun of Sanskrit knowledge

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I've already mentioned how awesome this mod is, but wanted to just say thanks again after having now played and completed all the available missions. Well done to all involved and thank you for the dedication and hard work that must have gone into this.

 

I wasn't sure where to post this, but I wanted to provide a little feedback on some of the sounds and animations:

 

I love the animations when the guards cough, sneeze and especially spit! These little touches really bring the AI to life, though one of the sound files, I think one of the sneezing ones, sounds like it was recorded inside an aluminium can.

 

Sometimes the guards will keep looking at something when patrolling, and occasionally this looks great (like when walking past a doorway I noticed a guard keep an eye on the room as he walked past). Other times they don't seem to be looking at anything in particular and I was wondering whether this animation is just random, or if they are coded to pay attention to certain things (like alcoves / shadows, doorways, loot etc).

 

When mantling a higher object, the animation takes longer (which is great) but there should be an audio cue that suggests it took some effort to climb the object.

 

When dropping a body, it falls to the ground immediately, but the sound carries on, suggesting that you're still in the process of dropping the body long after it has hit the ground. My preference would be to have a longer animation to match the sound, since you would realistically be careful not to quickly drop a body and make a lot of noise in the process.

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Thanks Midnight.

 

The body dropping is down to virtual physics so it's duration will depend on random events in the game environment whereas the sound is a fixed length sound. The same problem affects doors opening and closing. If you block a door with a long squeaky sound then the sound continues; if a stone door slides slowly open the sound is likely to finish too early.

 

The guards looking around is random though there is a bug at the moment where sometimes the lock on to something unknown indefinitely.

 

The little touches like coughs and sneezes, particularly because they are synchronised with an animation convulsion are spookily realistic I agree. :)

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Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant the sound coming from the player character makes you think you're still dropping the body, even though the body was released immediately. Try this out next time you're in a mission and I think you'll see what I mean. My suggestion was to have the drop key perhaps initiate an animation (or just a simple timer), then the body is released from the player nearer to the end of the sound file so they sync up better.

 

Maybe it's not as noticeable as I thought since nobody else has mentioned it before, but I'd be interested in hearing what other people think.

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Thief 3 was never a REAL part of Thief series to me. Although the game isn't bad, it is far worse than T1 and T2. I think that game lost a soul, immersion, and even some kind of realism, I don't know it clearly, but the most important is that Darkmod have it all! The resemblance to the Looking Glass Studio games is unbelievable, and it is great! But the Darkmod also has a much greater potential because of new AI, new graphics, animations, physics system, and a tons of other new (and better) stuff! It's like a beautiful dream to the Thief community and all fans;) 

 

Thanks, guys.

 

 

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Is this the right Forum/Thread for praise?

 

You guys are SO AWESOME!!!!!!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I just finished playing the training mission, and even there I had so much fun, I didn´t think I could get this out of a computer game anymore!

 

I am deeply impressed by the lockpicking system, the battle system, object handling and actually everything! All these aspects are so much fun on their own already, I can´t wait to see what an actual mission with athmosphere and storytelling will be like (will try it today)! I actually had the real Thief feeling gooing on, only with a much-enhanced engine!

 

I only tried Tears of St Lucia a couple months ago, but that didn´t really work for me. Maybe because of my old computer or who knows. But with the actual release now everything feels perfect and now I´m a super-fan of TDM!

 

Keep up the good work guys!

 

Cheers!

Christian

Edited by Loniel
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Hi Darkmod team,

 

thank you for doing this. Let me introduce myself: i´m rather old, ex-gamer with that burnt syndrome (means i´ve quitted playing games some time ago, they have nothing to offer to me, and i have more essential work to do, family and stuff) but i check out this site ocassionaly since i dicovered darkmod is being developed. Hoping that the initial experience with T:DP so many years ago will repeat... and it did! Everything is there, and maybe my good will to let myself sucked again into realm of shadows plays the role too.... as many has stated, TDS was rather disappointment, just as DX:IW... so there is very litttle chance that Thief4 or DX3 will break out to be great as the predecessors was... so for me, THIS is Thief 4, alive and kicking! At least they would not be created for fans by fans, rather by pros for market... and this would not work.

So, how dou you re-created those atmosphere ? to me it seems like ambient music is extracted directly from old Thief... are you recording new score exactly by what you hear in Thief 1 and 2 ? some stuff i see is like exact copy too - gas lamps for example... do you copy that old meshes?

Anyway, its not realy important to me, only think that matters is that it works... i guess Thief series are mostly based on atmosphere, and ambient sound plays big role... i seem to be a dark-ambient addict since playing thief :-)

Now to some issues i had : i encountered minor problems running darkmod since those pre-beta releases, Thief´s Den and Saintlucia... was odd, but i was able to run those only at 1024x768 and not my monitor´s native 1280x1024, had those black textures bug... but then everything fixed and Doom3 was waitig patched and fixed on my HDD for this release... and again, problem arised... mission loaded well, few minutes of playing

and game freezed... sound goes on, but screen freezed, even ctrl-alt del didn´t worked... but i was ready to fight issues, so instead of starting to post in panic, installed newest graphics driver (´cause i know that virtually nothing else than graphic driver cant ruin my vista to the point when only reset works) and voila... game runs fine! Don´t get why, D3 is so old game so i supposed that it don´t need newest one... but maybe you are using newest drivers while coding (i´m on nVidia) so if anyone encountered this particular problem, try reinstall drivers... mine is 195.39 yet.

Also i done some graphical tweaking to game, pushed Bloom effect little higher accordig to old post "Bloom in Saintlucia" now i´m pretty satisfied with visuals. Only thing that looked bit overlooked to me was my reflection in a mirror i guess it was Patently Dangerous FM... looked kinda funny and moved funny... just like players reflestion in old Deus Ex... Really great (and f***ing creepy) mission though...

Again, big thanks for those responsible. Will cost me some sleepless nights.

Thanks for making me gamer for a while again.

Looking forward for FMs to come.

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Thanks Trickster. Dark Mod assets are not copied from Thief but inevitably, drawing on insipiration from old drawing and photographs there are similarities. An old gaslight is an old gaslight... :)

 

Neither the player character model nor shadow is supported by Dark Mod as it involves a lot more work. If FM makers include a mirror in their FM then you can see the flaws. Likewise if you turn on player shadow it is not perfect. Nevertheless both are fun and if one accepts the limitations, well worthwhile.

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I've played some more with the dark mod, and i was far from it, it is simply wonderfull...

it is as good as thief 1 and 2...

 

 

btw: I haven't been able to defeat the second oponnent with the sword in the training mission... guess i'll be up for ghosting and some blackjack work like I used to do with the dark project...

Edited by elwing
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btw: I haven't been able to defeat the second oponnent with the sword in the training mission...

 

Same here :laugh: but i am dropping the sword at the shop anyway.

 

have fun

Ich konnte mich nicht erinnern Teleportation gezaubert zu haben und doch stand ich da... alleine und nackt.

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  • 2 weeks later...

About the palyer grunt dropping a body. I'd have to go in game to check, but it never seemed out of place to me before. Sometimes these things are more noticable after someone says something and you pay specific attention.

But in theory the grunt should actually be just before the AI is dropped. It's not the dropping that would make someone grunt, easy enough to drop anything. But it would actually be the action of lifting it up from the shoulder to throw it that would make you grunt.

 

-----

@ Trickster,

Fidcal's right, all assests are custom (sans the doom3 stuff that can be used, but I don't think much has been used). A few of my objects were released for T2 custom missions and since they were already made and I felt useable for DarkMod I ported them over.

 

But although there are similar items (gas lights, goblets, footlockers, etc...) we did strive for each to have a unique look to DarkMod. The footlockers are probably similar in shape to T2 ones, they are simple boxes, but the models and textures were done soley for DarkMod by myself.

The gaslights are very different though, T2 had glass bowls on them and they used natural gas (blue flames), ours use oil (I presume) (yellow flames) and don't have a glass bowl.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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About the palyer grunt dropping a body. I'd have to go in game to check, but it never seemed out of place to me before.

 

I've noticed it as well. The grunting continues long after the body has been dropped. I even went to change it, but I can't find where the 'drop body' sound is set.

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Your game makes me really want to steal something!

 

A fan of the series from the start, what do I say...more of an addict indeed....I can´t begin to praise what you have achieved here.

But let me be precise, I have to control my excitement and simply make a list of the things that took my breath away in the last 3 nights when I played through the available missions.

 

1. It feels real dark (I love that)

2. It not only matches the quality of the first 3 (Yes I count in Deadly Shadows even if that is going to get me into some trouble) but in many ways surpasses it (the obviouest being a total eyecandy by the standards of 21st Century game graphics)

3.The Audiopart is equally great: Where could I get the suspense of not being seen and at the same time p...ing my pants, while overhearing the total Monty-Pythonesque conversations and statements of the guards, which btw are all beautifully synchronized (cudos to the voiceovers). The music is delicious, congrats to the composer, the tune of the menu with the musicbox being winded up makes me wanna hide under something, hehe

4. The new Inventions: Lockpicking, Combat and object manipulation are really heavily to master, but you feel from the start: they are all worth the effort and you get rewarded by not having instantly to panic when you are spotted.

 

My only question is, how could you achieve such quality without a huge budget? Was it luck, was it destiny, was it for a good purpose?

Don`t know but you are really giving Eidos a hard time, cause when they mess the franchise with the 4th part up -which I fear, watching their new politics to make their games unmodable and not caring for the community and buyers of their game, when they see no profit in it- and they will come crying at your door and begging you for the secret recipe how to make the mother of all stealth games, you will simply turn the lights out and sneak off.

 

So my wishes for this years Xmas have totally come true, no wait... what would be great: A thief Advent calendar around December where every day you can open a door and start a mission.

 

Counting on you Map-Artists out there. :ph34r:

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Hey Guys,

 

remember me, had alot of motivation n very lil time lol...

 

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks... you guys did a kick arse job on this.

It's thief the way it was meant to be. I love every part of what I've seen

so far, though I do have a few gripes... the run speed is waay too slow,

but I spose it's that way to make maps feel larger... n the creep speed

is a pain. I said at the time in the dev forum, u should just make it similar

to crouch speed but slower... after all humans can creep quite fast n still be

silent lol... anyway small gripe...

 

I love the weapon system.. wow going to take some getting used to, n rightly so

he's can't take much damage, good reason not to be seen lol, feel is perfect.

There was heaps of arguments about lockpicking, n I was pretty much against

this system at the time, but after trying it, after you've got it all sorted out

I think it's the best system you could've come up with. It works, and isn't hard.

Though opening the cage door to the machine room put up a bit of a challenge with

all the noise lol... nice idea lol

 

Now I'm just hanging out for some more FM's... I downloaded some from sight,

but only 2 downloaded, for some reason. I'll try again.

 

Great job, first class, n well worth the wait :D

 

Venus

I have an eclectic YouTube channel making videos on a variety of games. Come and have look here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NeonsStyleHD

 

Dark Mod Missions: Briarwood Manor - available here or in game

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18980-fan-mission-briarwood-manor-by-neonsstyle-first-mission-6082017-update-16/

 

 

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though I do have a few gripes... the run speed is waay too slow,

but I spose it's that way to make maps feel larger...

I think TDM has the run speed spot on...;)

 

http://www.shadowdar...unspeedwide.wmv

 

(Props to Komag for this fantastic vid)

yay seuss crease touss dome in ouss nose tair

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Wife and I have been gaming for a decade now ,,, mostly Co-op like SWAT, Doom3 w/ LMS coop mod, HalfLife 2, vegas 2 etc ... both of us have played many, many titles, but our hands down favorite is the Thief series ... although not co-op (although thievery is fun thief co-op) it's the gameplay and characters we love. From Karras to Marla to the guards, ... anyways, tonight is the night ... we both have TDM installed configured and ready to go! - I did just enough of the training level to know that this is the new Thief 4 ... only better because you guys remembered to put in all the good stuff! When TDS came out w/o a rope arrow, I was shocked! climbing gloves? eh .... ok, I guess so.

 

Seriously, thank all of you for all of your hard work ... it plays smoother than TDS on my PC, 1920 X 1200 (thank you for allowing the wide screen res w/o having to edit an ini file!) 24 inch LCD's ... I'm dual core 2.4, 3 gig ram w/ 8600, running 8x, 8x she's quad core 3.2 w/ 4 gig o ram w/ 8800 pro ... 1920X1200 16X, 16X. We are avid thief fans, and have been bummed about the end of the line, but I've been watching this little mod grow into quite possibly the best game ever made ... I'm not kidding ... I can't WAIT until tonight after kids go to bed and we can play! - Choosing the Doom 3 engine was a PERFECT choice ... the enviroment you guys have created is just awesome.

 

PS throw up a paypal donation and you'll get some of my money for sure. Thank so much! Darrin Cates

www.mainecustomdesign.com

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