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Complaint From Players The player must pick up candles before extinguishing them, and then the player must remember to drop the candle. The player must drag a body before shouldering it (picking it up), and the player must remember to frob again to stop dragging the body. The player finds this annoying or easy to make mistakes. For players who ghost, some of them have the goal of returning objects back to their original positions. With the current "pick up, use item, and drop" system, the item might not return easily or at all to its original position. For example, a candlestick might bounce off its holder. (See player quotes at the bottom.) Bug Tracker https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6316 Problems to Solve How can the "pick up" step be eliminated so that the player can directly use or interact with the item where it is in the game world? How can so much key pressing and mouse clicking be eliminated when the player wants to directly use an item? How can candles be extinguished and lanterns toggled off/on without first picking them up? How can bodies be shouldered without first dragging them? Solution Design Goals Make TDM easier for new players while also improving it for longtime players. Reduce tedious steps for common frob interactions. Make it intuitive so that menu settings are unnecessary. Do not introduce bugs or break the game. Terms frob -- the frob button action happens instantly. hold frob -- the frob button is held for 200ms before the action happens. (This can be changed via cvar: 200ms by default.) Proposed Solution Note: Some issues have been struckthrough to show changes since the patch has been updated. Change how frobbing works for bodies, candles, and lanterns. For bodies: Frob to shoulder (pick up) a body. Second frob to drop shouldered body, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Hold frob (key down) to start drag, continue to hold frob (key down) to drag body, and then release frob (key up) to stop dragging body. Also, a body can be dragged immediately by holding frob and moving the mouse. For candles/lanterns: Frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. Hold frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. For food: Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to eat food. For other items: No change. New cvar "tdm_frobhold_delay", default:"200" The frob hold delay (in ms) before drag or extinguish. Set to 0 for TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Benefits Bodies: New players will have less to learn to get started moving knocked out guards. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players have played several missions before realizing that they could shoulder a body instead of dragging it long distances. Frob to shoulder body matches Thief, so longtime Thief players will find it familiar. Second frob drops a shouldered body. Players still have the ability to both shoulder and drag bodies. Compatible with the new auto-search bodies feature. Dragging feels more natural -- just grab, hold, and drop with a single button press. There is no longer the need to press the button twice. Also, it's no longer possible to walk away from a body while unintentionally dragging it. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Candles: New players will have less to learn to get started extinguishing candles. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players didn't know they could extinguish candles by picking them up and using them. Instead, they resorted to throwing them to extinguish them or hiding them. Hold frob to extinguish a candle feels like "pinching" it out. Once a candle is picked up, players still have the ability to manipulate and use them the same way they are used to in TDM v2.11 and earlier. For players who ghost and have the goal of putting objects back to their original positions, they'll have an easier time and not have to deal with candles popping off their holders when trying to place them back carefully. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Issues Bodies: Frob does not drop a shouldered body, so that might be unexpected for new players. This is also different than Thief where a second frob will drop a body. "Use Inv. Item" or "Drop Inv. Item" drops the body. This is the same as TDM v2.11 and earlier. This is the price to pay for being able to frob (open/close) doors while shouldering a body. Patch was updated to drop body on second frob, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Candles: Picking up a candle or lantern requires a slight delay, because the player must hold the frob button. The player might unintentionally extinguish a candle while moving it if they hold down frob. The player will need to learn that holding frob will extinguish the candle. The player can change the delay period via the "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar. Also, when the cvar is set to a delay of 0, the behavior matches TDM v2.11 and earlier, meaning the player would have to first "Frob/Interact" to pick up the candle and then press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish it. Some players might unintentionally extinguish a candle when they are trying to move it or pick it up. They need to make sure to hold frob to initiate moving the candle. When a candle is unlit, it will highlight but do nothing on frob. That might confuse players. However, the player will likely learn after extinguishing several candles that an unlit candle still highlights. It makes sense that an already-extinguished candle cannot be extinguished on frob. The official "Training Mission" might need to have its instructions updated to correctly guide the player through candle manipulation training. Updating the training mission to include the hold frob to extinguish would probably be helpful. Similar Solutions In Fallout 4, frob uses an item and long-press frob picks it up. Goldwell's mission, "Accountant 2: New In Town", has candles that extinguish on frob without the need of picking them up first. Snatcher's TDM Modpack includes a "Blow / Ignite" item that allows the player to blow out candles Wesp5's Unofficial Patch provides a way to directly extinguish movable candles by frobbing. Demonstration Videos Note: The last two videos don't quite demonstrate the latest patch anymore. But the gist is the same. This feature proposal is best experienced in game, but some demonstration videos are better than nothing. The following videos show either a clear improvement or that the player is not slowed down with the change in controls. For example, "long-press" sounds long, but it really isn't. Video: Body Shouldering and Dragging The purpose of this video is to show that frob to shoulder a body is fast and long-press frob to drag a body is fast enough and accurate. Video: Long-Press Frob to Pick Up Candle The purpose of this video is to show how the long-press frob to pick up a candle isn't really much slower than regular frob. Video: Frob to Extinguish The purpose of this video -- if a bit contrived -- is to show the efficiency and precision of this proposed feature. The task in the video was for the player to as quickly and accurately as possible extinguish candles and put them back in their original positions. On the left, TDM v2.11 is shown. The player has to highlight each candle, press "Frob/Interact" to pick up, press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish, make sure the candle is back in place, and finally press "Frob/Interact" to drop the candle. The result shows mistakes and candles getting misplaced. On the right, the proposed feature is shown. The player frobs to extinguish the candles. The result shows no mistakes and candles are kept in their original positions. Special Thanks @Wellingtoncrab was instrumental in improving this feature during its early stages. We had many discussions covering varying scenarios, pros, and cons, and how it would affect the gameplay and player experience. Originally, I had a completely different solution that added a special "use modifier" keybinding. He suggested the frob to use and long-press frob to pick up mechanics. I coded it up, gave it a try, and found it to be too good. Without his feedback and patience, this feature wouldn't be as good as it is. Thank you, @Wellingtoncrab! And, of note, @Wellingtoncrab hasn't been able to try it in game yet, because I'm using Linux and can't compile a Windows build for him. So, if this feature isn't good, that's my fault. Code Patch I'll post the code patch in another post below this one so that folks who compile TDM themselves can give this proposal a try in game. And, if you do, I look forward to your feedback! Player Complaints TTLG (2023-01-10) Player 1: TDM Forums (2021-03-13) Player 2: Player 3: TDM Forums (2023-06-17) Player 4: TDM Discord (2021-05-18) Player 5: TDM Discord (2023-02-14) Player 6: Player 7: Player 8:

The electronic keypad is something I've wanted for a long time, along with laser tripped alarms which are next on my TODO list. I'm happy to announce they're a feature I just finished as part of a futuristic campaign I began working on! The version included here is extracted into an individual pk4 for other mappers to use. I may improve mine over time like using a GUI for the screen, for now this is a simple but finished version which does exactly everything intended. It consists of the custom script and def, models created and exported from DR reusing existing sounds and textures (only text labels had to be created), as well as prefabs for model sources and quickly placing a keypad on your map (broken or unpowered versions included). The device is operated using 12 buttons forming a numeric keypad inspired by old mobile phones, stand close look at each key and frob to input: Give your keypad a "text" spawnarg to set a password (multiple codes supported), entities targeted via "trigger_on_success" will execute when the correct code was typed, you may also set "trigger_on_fail" spawnargs to trigger targets when a bad code was written. Existing input can be cancelled with * and must be confirmed using the # key at the end, once unlocked pressing any key will re-trigger targets and lock the device back up. One aspect I'm unhappy with: I couldn't find a way for the script to directly access the entity triggering it. Because of this I had to define an additional "atdm:target_callobjectfunction" targeted by buttons which itself targets the keypad. This is only an annoyance for sanity's sake as I hoped I'd only need the keypad entity and individual buttons, yet there's also a little yellow cube sticking around which every button has to go through. Let me know if you're aware of a way to work around this; I know the script can use sys.onSignal(SIG_TRIGGER, self, "foo::bar") to run a function when triggered, but there doesn't seem to be a way to access the entity doing the triggering which is required to know which button was pressed and get its symbol. Here's the initial version with a few screenshots of how it looks and works. Feel free to use them in your FM's and share the result here! I'd love to see missions where you need to find codes in readables and remember them to access places, even having to piece them together from different sources... remember you can also use short passwords which are typed like an SMS hence the letters on the keys, for example "abe" would be "11122" (a = 1, b = 11, e = 22) 0 acts as space though I wouldn't write long sentences as they can be annoying to type in. electronic_keypad_v1.0.pk4

Ulysses 2: Protecting the Flock By Sotha The mission starts some time after the events of Ulysses: Genesis, and continues the story of Ulysses. It is a medium sized mission with a focus on stealthy assassinations and hostage liberation. BUILD TIME: 12/2014 - 05/2015 CREDITS The TDM Community is thanked for steady supply of excellent mapping advice. Thanks goes also to everyone contributing to TDM! Voice Actors: Goldwell (as Goubert and Ulysses), Goldwell's Girlfriend (as Alis) Betatesters: Airship Ballet, Ryan101. Special Thanks to: Springheel and Melan (for proofreading). Story: Read & listen it in game. Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwR0ORZU5sraRGduUWlVRmtsX3c/view?usp=sharing Other: Spoilers: When discussing, please use spoiler tags, like this: [spoiler] Hidden text. [/spoiler] Mirrors: Could someone put this on TDM ingame downloader? Thanks!

Greetings everyone! I recently got into TDM and am already having a lot of fun playing through and ghosting missions. However, coming from Thief, I am mostly relying on the rules and my experience with that game, while there are clearly differences in how TDM works. Right now, there is talk in the ghosting discussion thread on TTLG to amend the ruleset and include clarifications pertaining to TDM. So I wanted to drop by and ask: is there an active TDM ghosting community already and have any rules for this playstyle been developed? I would also like to ask someone to take a look at the draft of this addendum to see whether everything looks correct: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148487&page=16&p=2473352&viewfull=1#post2473352 Thanks!

Glad I came to the forums to check out more details about this mission after playing. I was a little confused by a Bikerdude FM only taking 10mins to run through haha. Knowing it's a tech/build demo means I'm not going to spend the next hour or so looping through it trying to figure out if I missed a secret Krampus area or encounter xD.

So this online store I bought a pair of headphones from decided to gift me 12$ today. Since the voucher would expire in in two weeks unless used and I had nothing else to get, I decided to spend it on a 17$ gamepad so I'd have one of these as well. I understand they should work fine under Linux these days, plus it supports both dinput and xinput so I'm not concerned. I never played any FPS or most games using something other than the keyboard and mouse, this feels like an interesting opportunity to try it out. TDM is one of the games I might enjoy playing with such a thing, especially since it doesn't require super-fast reactions till I get used to it like a deathmatch shooter. So until the device arrives tomorrow, I figured I'd ask how well I can expect TDM to run on such a thing! Especially now that we have a new rendering and input management system for the upcoming TDM 2.10. There's a few things I wanted to know. One is if both looking around as well as movement using the finger pads is supported. I remember some games allowed walking more slowly if you only pushed the pad slightly; Does this mean it's possible to sneak by only moving the pad a bit, in a way that affects how much guards hear you? Otherwise I was curious if force feedback (vibration) is implemented and used. For TDM this mainly makes sense when you take damage, are in radius of a sound that has the shake effect, and other potential situations I might be missing now. Is gamepad vibration a feature in the engine at least?

I've read about this before here on the forums, even when the contest had just recently concluded, but reading about it in greater detail years later is certainly interesting. Thank you. It's a pity that it was mostly the marketing people who were involved on the Square Enix side, as I had the impression it was also the devs at EM that had played Requiem and all the other submitted missions and really liked them. I suppose it was as well, but the TDM team mostly heard from the marketing people. Yes, I wanted to note that as well. I even remember how the people over here in the TDM forums were sort of laughing at the fact that the results of the contest were favourable to TDM and had, in a sense, "proven" TDM as a worthy freeware successor to the Thief IP, with all the modding and mapping tools at one's disposal and so on, whereas Thief 4 or Thi4f or whatever Square Enix were calling it at that point, offered no such possibilities. The entire contest, while no doubt declared in good will and something I actually appreciated seeing, was such a self-own for Square Enix, ultimately to the detriment of them trying to bring back and market the reboot of an older IP. Even if Thief 2014 was a terrific reboot (which I doubt it would ever be), it would still have been hampered by people learning about modding being impossible, and looking to the trilogy and to TDM instead, to make new Thief-style stealth gaming content. Still, I appreciate they recognized the quality's of Moonbo's Requiem FM. Given many retrospectives I've seen over the years, gradually, on the 2014 Thief reboot attempt, one thing a surprising amount of them shared was noting how the game didn't feel cohesive in concept and execution, at any point. Not only not to the same level as the Thief trilogy, but also not even at the level when you consider it as an individual game, a new game on its own. Errant Signal, who's not some deep Thief fan, replayed the older games and played the reboot back when it came out, and made this exact observation already a decade ago. The reboot was just all over the place, in every department, felt clearly unfinished or rushed, and the most interesting story would be the behind the scenes at Eidos Montreal, on how mismanaged the entire project became over the course of several years. I think it's telling that, while even heavily discounted on GOG.com, Thief 2014 hasn't been selling well there, nor attracting much interest, whereas the original trilogy sells for figurative (and sometimes literal) cents on that same site - you can buy the whole trilogy for a smaller price than the reboot, which is kind of hilarious - and continues to have great sales and is considered one of the all-time bestsellers. Same here. I concur with demagogue that the actual Eidos Montreal devs behind Thief 2014, at least those who cared enough to make it at least somewhat presentable and playable - even if the actual game directors never got their act together and never decided on a consistent design apporach - those would have been much more interesting to be in contact with, even regarding the fan mission contest. The sad truth of the matter is that all too many big publishers these days, especially those formed through larger mergers, like the Eidos buyout by Square Enix, are often marketing-first, interest in developers, and veteran players and new players alike, second. I still remember the sheer amount of money spent on pointless external marketing for Thief 2014, all the while that reboot attempt never really coalesced into anything that felt consistent (rather than throwing everything at the wall, in a panic, hoping something would stick), and was also plagued by all manner of technical issues. Just an overall embarassment, and I'm not surprised that even very lenient-leaning game retrospectives of that reboot attempt. The fact that the Thief IP has been sold away to Nordic Games and Embracer in more recent years, with Square Enix no longer caring about it and other older game IPs, also says a lot. Given the Embracer Group's own woes and bad decisions, I'm not sure any new development team will ever attempt another installment of Thief, even if it was a second reboot attempt.

You can ask people to test your mission here, but the beta tresting should be in this other section: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/forum/59-tdm-mission-beta-testing/ Read also: I think it's so that there are no spoilers in view for new regular players.

For the people eager to play with the latest state of development, two things are provided: regular dev builds source code SVN repository Development builds are created once per a few weeks from the current trunk. They can be obtained via tdm_installer. Just run the installer, check "Get Custom Version" on the first page, then select proper version in "dev" folder on the second page. Name of any dev version looks like devXXXXX-YYYY, where XXXXX and YYYY are SVN revision numbers from which the build was created. The topmost version in the list is usually the most recent one. Note: unless otherwise specified, savegames are incompatible between any two versions of TDM! Programmers can obtain source code from SVN repository. Trunk can be checked out from here: https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src/trunk/ SVN root is: https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src Build instructions are provided inside repository. Note that while you can build executable from the SVN repository, TDM installation of compatible version is required to run it. Official TDM releases are compatible with source code archives provided on the website, and also with corresponding release tags in SVN. A dev build is compatible with SVN trunk of revision YYYY, where YYYY is the second number in its version (as described above). If you only want to experiment with the latest trunk, using the latest dev build gives you the maximum chance of success. P.S. Needless to say, all of this comes with no support. Although we would be glad if you catch and report bugs before the next beta phase starts

I was cautious because I didn't want it to be perceived that I was using The Dark Mod Forums to promote my mod but I get your point - we're all in this together. Over the years we've had a few different team members, but for the past few months it's mostly been just me and one other person. The Thieves Guild project started a long time ago, when Rune was still popular. We liked Thief and we also liked Rune so we combined the two games together. We incorporated all of the cloak & dagger elements from Thief but we also wanted our thief to be able to fight like a Viking. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely a thief/stealth game. Through the 20 or so missions, we tell a story about a thief working for the local thieves' guild, operating within a dark and corrupt city. Under the cover of night, you are assigned a series of dangerous missions - success is rewarded with valuable items, increased wealth, and greater prestige from within the guild. To survive, you must move silently through shadowed alleyways, scale heavily guarded buildings, bypass deadly traps, and pick stubborn locks - all while avoiding detection by the city watch and roaming night patrols. One misstep can mean capture, failure, or worse. In this city, survival belongs to those who remain unseen. Thieves Guild was designed to be played on a computer using a keyboard and mouse. Rune uses the Unreal Engine 1. I'm glad you liked what you saw in "The Dark Side Edition Trailer". This video is a walk-through of The Training Mission.

I guess this is basic stuff for you talented model-boys but now I've trudged for several hours without results and from what I have read in several forums/threads, it's even not that trivial. Therefore I dare to start a thread... I've download some models from the web but these come in some new and fancy format; (FBX, USD etc) not exactly the old and brittle format that we use in TDM So to import these into DarkRadiant I need to convert these to lwo or ASE, right? How do people go about this? I have tried to: - install Blender 5.0 and added an ASE-exporter plugin. Blender actually puts out an ASE-file but as I try to open it in DR, the model is only showed as that checkerboard error-box. Do I need to tinker with the model in a text editor first? I read something about changing something about a BITMAP-line... - use an ancient version (7.0) version of Lightwave but that program cannot even open the files (Not surprising)...

Mission Name: Full Moon Fever Author: Spoonman Build time: 5 months. Version: 1.10 Released: 14/05/2016 Type: Manor Size: Medium-large Completion time: About an hour. Difficulty settings: Higher difficulties require you to find more loot and also place restrictions on killing enemies. Known issues: Some areas of the mission can get noticeable drops in framerate. Download links: http://www.mediafire.com/file/ub2vf0t4wwd4ks1/fever.pk4/file Special thanks to: Melan and Xarg for beta testing this mission and providing input on how to improve it. Grayman for his minecart and tracks models from "Somewhere Above the City" Bikerdude for his map from "Alberic's Curse" Gigagooga for his custom ambient sounds (thanks to Melan for recommending them to me)

We know. There is already a support topic for that. https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22533-tdm-for-diii4a-support-topic/ And earlier: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/16672-trying-to-run-tdm-on-android/ And other systems: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Installer_and_Manual_Installation#Other_Systems

============== -= IRIS =- ============== WELLINGTONCRAB TDM v 2.11 REQ Ver. 1.3 *For Maureen* -=- "Carry the light of the Builder, Brother. Unto its end." -Valediction of the Devoted "What year is this? Am I dreaming?" -Plea of the Thief Dear Iris, I am old and broken. When we were young it felt like the words came easily. Now I find the ink has long dried on the pen and I'm as wanting for words as coin in my purse. I can tell we are nearing the end of the tale; time enough for one more job before the curtain call... ============== -Installation- Requires minimum version of TDM 2.11 **Dev build dev17056-10800 (2.13) fixes several visual effects which have been broken in the mission since the release of 2.11. For that reason playing with that version or later is currently recommended** -Iris does not support mods or the Unofficial Patch- Download and place the following .pk4 into you FMs directory: Iris Download ============== *Thank you for playing. Iris is a large mission which can either take as quickly or as long as you are compelled to play. I hope someone out there enjoys it and this initial release is not completely busted - I tried the best I could!* *Iris both is and isn't what it seems. If commenting please use spoiler tags where appropriate. If you are not certain if it would be appropriate a good assumption would be to use a spoiler tag* *Support TDM by rating missions on Thief Guild: https://www.thiefguild.com/* ============== WITH LASTING GRATITUDE: OBSTORTTE - Whose gameplay scripts from his thread laid the foundation which made the mission seem like something I could even pull off at all. Also fantastic tutorial videos! DRAGOFER - Who built upon that foundation and made it shine even brighter! And whom also provided immeasurable quantities of help and encouragement the past couple years on the TDM discord. ORBWEAVER & GIGAGOOGA - For generously offering their ambient music up for use. EPIFIRE - Who lent me his fine trash and trash receptacle models. AMADEUS - Who was the first person who wasn't me to play the damn thing and provided his excellent editorial services to improving the readers experience playing TESTERS AND TROUBLESHOOTERS: AMADEUS * DATISWOUS * SPOOKS * ALUMINUMHASTE * JAXA * JACKFARMER * WESP5 * ATE0ATE * MADTAFFER * STGATILOV * DRAGOFER * KINGSAL * KLATREMUS - What can I possibly say? Playing this thing over and over again could not have been easy. Deepest thanks and all apologies. -=THANKS TO ALL ON THE TDM DISCORD AND FORUM=- ==SEE README.TXT FOR ADDITIONAL ATTRIBUTIONS & INFORMATION== HONORABLE MENTION: GOLDWELL - If I hadn't by chance stumbled into Northdale back in 2018/2019 I would probably still be trying to get this thing to work in TDS, which means it probably would not exist - though more details on that in readme. ============== Boring Technical Information: *Iris is a performance intensive mission and I recommend a GTX 1060 or equivalent. I find the performance similar to other demanding TDM missions on my machine, but mileage may vary and my apologies if this prevents anyone from enjoying the mission.* *Iris heavily modifies the behavior of AI in the game, how they relate/respond to each other and the player. So they may act even stranger than they do typically in TDM. Feedback on this is useful - as it can potentially be improved and expanded upon in future patches.* -=- This is my first release and it has been a long time coming! If I forgot anything please let me know! God Speed. 2.10 Features Used:

started moving back to solus to get away from all the corporate shenanigans. so far it runs everything i throw at it but it might not be for a pure windows user since there are some steps nessesary to make things work that might put them off. the nvidia bug seems to be fixed for now and it runs happily along with my rtx 3070 (previous update broke a lot of nvidia drivers "black screen"). lutris works out of the box and steam also, steam is a bit easier to use though since setting up games with lutris can be a bit weird (the wording needs some work). for example to setup a game it asks to point to where you want it installed but the wording seems to indicate the setup file just go with the default and click next. and here it gets even more confusing since now it asks for the setup file but there is nowhere to input it... what it actually wants is a name for the shortcut so give it one that fits the game and click next and finally you can input where your setup.exe is. now let it install and setup wines emulators though some games want to install directx and msvc runtimes say yes to allow it since a few games need xaudio support and wines versions might not work to well. let it run to the end and sure let it install those icons on the desktop. well heres where some might say wtf because the icons have no eh... icon. dont fret they will show correctly after a restart but its not something most users would know. the games will for most cases work immediatly though. if not there are sites that offer settings you can try out to get it working but that means diving headlong into wines internals so you need a bit of understanding.

I'll probably try Thief 3 for the first time in forever after snobel finishes making a Linux version of Sneaky Upgrade. https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138607&page=82 https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153010

My old friend Andreas urgently needs my help. He asked if I could meet him at the Lion's Head Inn, our favourite retreat in a quaint part of the city called Mirkway Quarter. He’s got a small apartment nearby where he makes a modest living off paintings he sells to pompous nobles and the odd merchant. Not long ago, his wife Lily was hired as a servant at the manor of the local alderman, one Lord Marlow. Now she hasn't been home for days. Andreas went to the manor looking for her, but the guards shoved him into the gutter and warned him not to return. Andreas is certain that something bad has happened, and I don’t think he’s wrong. Gallery Authors’ Notes It all started many years ago when Shadowhide laid the foundation for a sprawling and convoluted city and worked with MoroseTroll and Clearing to create a macabre storyline to befit this medieval metropolis. At some point, however, the beast grew too large to handle, so he handed the keys to the City to Bikerdude and Melan. Together, the two worked tirelessly, passing the map back and forth, each playing to their respective strengths. Notably, Melan reworked the story concept, toning down many of its darker, R-rated elements. Eventually Melan, too, moved on in 2017, but by then large swathes of the community had become involved in this map’s development. Mapping work was contributed by Baal, Grayman, Fidcal, Ubermann, Skacky, and Flanders, while Destined, nbohr1more, and Obsttorte wrote story texts. Several scripts were provided by Grayman, Baal and Obsttorte, such as an elevator with scissor gates, a TDM first. Even after all this input, the daunting task still remained to transform what had grown into the largest TDM map ever made into a playable mission. Bikerdude hammered away at this for some more years still, on and off between other projects, until in early 2020 when he deemed it ready for public viewing. It was then that Dragofer and Amadeus joined in. In the months that followed, the trio reworked, finished, and polished the mission in nearly every aspect, fully writing out and editing the story as well as adding countless scripted effects and (with help from Bienie) many new readables. The good working atmosphere and pooled creativity brought forth several new secrets, of which the largest likely hasn’t been done before in TDM (hint: check the libraries). In the very end, the name “Fractured Glass Company” was drawn up to refer to everybody who was involved in creating this very special mission. Without the hard work of all these people, most of all Bikerdude and Shadowhide, this mission would likely never have seen the light of day, let alone become what you see here before you. The mission is, as Bikerdude puts it, a homage to Thief 1 & 2, and it’s our hope that you catch these vibes as you explore and enjoy this mission. Update 1.2 (released 04/04/2021) Update 1.1 (released 11/11/2020) Credits - Mapping: Shadowhide, Bikerdude, Amadeus, Baal, Dragofer, Fidcal, Flanders, Melan, Skacky, UberMann - Original Story Concept: Clearing, MoroseTroll, Shadowhide - Story & Readables: Amadeus, Bienie, Bikerdude, Dragofer, Destined, Melan, nbohr1more, Obsttorte, Shadowhide - Editor: Amadeus - Scripting: Dragofer, Baal, Grayman, Obsttorte - Voice Acting: AndrosTheOxen (Andreas), Joe Noelker (Player) - Video Editing: Bikerdude (briefing), Goldwell (briefing intro) - Custom Models: Bikerdude, Dragofer, Dram, Epifire, Grayman, Obsttorte - Custom Textures: Airship Ballet, Dmv88, Hugo Lobo - Custom Sounds: GigaGooga, Sephy, Shadow Sneaker, alanmcki, andre_onate, Deathscyp, dl-sounds.com, Dmv88, dwoboyle, eugensid90, gzmo, lucasduff, mistersherlock, qubodup, randommynd, richerlandtv, sfx4animation, Speedenza - Betatesting: Amadeus, ate0ate, Biene, Bluerat, CambridgeSpy, Cardia, Dragofer, Garrett(Monolyth-42), JoeBarnin, Kingsal, Krilmar, ManzanitaCrow, MikeA, Noodles, S1lverwolf, s.urfer Download Note: this mission requires TDM 2.08, which is now available for download. Please be aware that old saved games will no longer work after you upgrade to 2.08's release build. Note: it’s highly recommended to run this mission using the 64-bit client (TheDarkModx64.exe), since there've been frequent reports the mission won't load on the 32-bit client (TheDarkMod.exe). Both are found in the same folder. The mission is available from the ingame downloader. In addition to that, here are some more mirrors, as well as the official screenshots for anybody uploading this mission to a FM database: Mission: Google Drive / OneDrive Mission (v1.1, slimmed down version for 32-bit clients): Google Drive / OneDrive Official Screenshots: Google Drive / OneDrive Hi-Res Map: Imgur Links Secret loot & areas walkthrough by @Lzocast

To those that have worked on it: How difficult is for A.I. at this moment to learn from existing database and build some propper fm's with input from an author? At least at an architectural layout only, that someone can work on?

[edit]Please note that this version of Return to the City has been superseded by an expanded and significantly performance-optimised rerelease, available here. However, I'd appreciate if some of these download links were left around so people can check out the original version if they wish.[/edit] Hello, Taffers! My FM for the Grand Christmas FM Contest, Return to the City, has been completed and available at TTLG (updated Hammers-into-Builders version) www.darklurker.com (updated Hammers-into-Builders version) www.uploading.com (Hammers-into-Builders update) www.mediafire.com (Hammers-into-Builders update) www.mediafire.com (second link - thanks, Vexd) (Hammers-into-Builders update) www.sharebee.com (thanks, Chiron!) (Hammers-into-Builders update) Have fun, and please read the release notes, below! (Especially point 1) Last but definitely not least, thanks are due to my beta testers, who have been very helpful in finding and fixing the bugs that have cropped up, as well as everyone on the TDM forums for their help and support. Thank you! Series information: All of my missions except Unbidden Guest (TMA) take place in a common setting and involve the same protagonist, although under different aliases - Talbot, Messer Johannes, Philby and others. None of them require previous knowledge of previous FMs, but there are common elements and a degree of continuity. The missions, in current order, are: Prowler of the Dark (TDP/Gold) (S): liberate a skull of paganic enchantment from an abandoned church, which is kept sealed and guarded by the Builders.Return to the City (The Dark Mod) (M): plunder the other side of the Builder complex to steal a pack of explosives. Patrols have been heightened because of the recent break-in. (This mission connects to the previous along the North/South axis - too bad I didn't have the time to let you revisit some old areas) (You are here!)Fiasco at Fauchard Street (The Dark Mod) (M): steal a collection of opals from the house of a wealthy usurer.Bad Debts (TMA) (XL): fallen on hard times, you take a job from a diminutive snitch to steal his letter of debt from Markus, a pawnshop owner/usurer (looks like a common theme). Rooftop extravaganza.Disorientation (TMA) (XL): following the events in the previous mission, you attract the unwanted attentions of Lady Azamlarg, district warden and judge, and have to break into her palace to deter her from further assassination attempts. More rooftops and conspiracies.

If I recall correctly, Goldwell wrote in these forums once that he was working on a successor, but, ran into some technical trouble he couldn't solve when designing the mission. I think he's currently working on multiple parts of the Shadows of Northdale series. And, if I'm not mistaken, a little bird (on another forum) told that Act 3 is already in beta.

Desired Results File with All Languages What is want to end up with from our AI (with any iterative fixup and manual integration) is an FM-only version of TDM’s UTF-8 all.lang. That file has 17 language sections in a particular order, which we will adopt too (in the prompt further below), although, other than English being first, it doesn’t really matter. Once we have our FM all.lang, we can easily generate all the required ISO-encoded *.lang files, e.g., french.lang. Strategy of Feeding the AI One approach would be to just feed the entire #str list in one gulp, with prompt engineering that covers all aspects. This would minimize the post-translate integration time. But the concern is that prompt engineering becomes more difficult. The AI might get confused about what restrictions and hints apply to which strings. While sometimes shared context across strings can be helpful, too much shared context could lead to overly-creative translations (e.g., hallucinations). [BTW, if accessing the AI through an API, there’s often a "temperature" value you can specify, from 0.0 to 1.0, from most-predictable to most-creative. We can use a few words in the prompt to approximately achieve similar ends.] So, to maintain more control, I’m going to batch-feed. The assumption is that translating #str_ in batches of related input groups will allow more focused guidance from prompt engineering, leading to better results. I’ll start with inventory items, that have the shortest strings and most dictionary-like lookup. An alternative/additional batching (particularly needed with large FMs) would be by "scene". In the case of Air Pocket, it could be thought of broadly as 4 scenes, based on timeline and location. The story, as driven by objectives, is fairly linear; larger FMs would typically have some randomization in scene order. Would batching by scene be useful (i.e., give better AI results) for some of Air Pocket’s #str_ s? Thinking this over. But for now, treat inventory items independent of scene. Prompt Engineering for Inventory Items A stab at a reusable template follows in blue. It describes the overall translation task, the desired tone, and input and output formats. Text specific to inventory items is shown in bold. Text that is specific to this FM, to clarify the context and the meaning of particular words, is in italics, with spoilers hidden. You are an expert translator between English and other European languages, including Russian. You wish to translate a list of inventory items, all inanimate objects, from English to these other languages. Each line of the list begins with a tab, then a word beginning with #str_ within double quotes, then another tab, then a phrase within double quotes. When you translate a line, in the output keep the tabs and the #str_ word unchanged, and only change the phrase to the other target language in UTF-8, keeping it in double quotes. Make the translated phrase reasonably short while preserving the formal meaning. Avoid modern slang. Old-fashioned wording is fine. At the end of each line, add another tab, and then add a back-translation of the previous phrase into English again. When back-translating, ignore the original English phrase. Most of the inventory items are keys, and the associated phrases describe locked doors to particular locations aboard a ship, or locked trunks or safes on a ship. The "Master Key" opens all locks. Following the input list of inventory items, append output lists in these target languages: 1. German 2. French 3. Polish 4. Italian 5. Spanish 6. Portuguese 7. Russian 8. Czech 9. Hungarian 10. Dutch 11. Slovak 12. Danish 13. Swedish 14. Romanian 15. Turkish 16. Catalan. List of inventory items: [... skipping 1 potential spoiler] "#str_fm_map_inv_key_captains_cabin" "Captain's Cabin" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_captains_safe" "Captain's Safe" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_galley" "Galley" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_master_key" "Master Key" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_mess" "Mess" "#str_fm_map_inv_key_sea_trunk" "Sea Trunk" Using ChatGPT As discussed at the outset, you can use this without signing in (it will nag you). Also, if you’d like it not to retain your input for training purposes, click on the circled question mark and change it under "Settings". As of this post, of you ask ChatGPT what model it’s using, it responds "You're currently chatting with GPT-4o, the latest model from OpenAI as of 2025. The "o" stands for "omni" — it's designed to handle text, images, and more, all in one model." Following up by enquiring about usage limitations, it says "Free users can access GPT‑4o, but with strict usage caps, which vary based on demand and time of day". More specifically, "usage falls in the range of 5–16 messages per 3–5 hours, after which you'll be limited or switched to GPT‑4o‑mini." The latter is a faster but lower-accuracy model. "We’ll notify you once you’ve reached the limit and invite you to continue your conversation using GPT-4o mini or to upgrade to [paid] ChatGPT Plus." Because I’m doing this at a leisurely rate (and reporting it to you in posts), the usage restrictions should not bite. About Input and Output Formats As you can see above, the input is the AI prompt, appended with content from english.lang, namely, the lines between the "{" and "}" brackets. For those lines, no change to tab-separation is done. The output is the same format, but with an added English back-translation added to each line. When ChatGPT generates the response, each requested language is enclosed in its own HTML response frame, with a separate "copy" link. So you have to copy each link separately, pasting them successively into your FM-specific all.lang file while adding headers, e.g., [French]. Also, the frame margin contains the word "vbnet". When I asked, ChatGPT indicates that’s the style of syntax highlighting applied to the results, based on source material, but it may be inappropriate and so ignorable. Which explains why the word "key" was always colored green. In the next post, I’ll discuss the specific results.

A set of some 200 missions is a lot to sift through to find what one likes. I never used your site but if it provided functionality to search missions for parameters like approximate playtime, series v standalone, and tags like undead, spiders, mansion, city, etc, then it sounds plenty useful. Can the functionality be incorporated into the main web page? Perhaps even integrated to fetch underlying data from the wiki (so that trusted editors can keep the parameters up to date)?

Installed this mission and now my game will not start at all, I get a blue screen page with all this in it... TDM 2.12/64 #10651 (1435:10651) win-x86_64 Feb 24 2024 17:13:42 3311 MHz Intel CPU with SSE & SSE2 & SSE3 & SSSE3 & SSE41 & AVX Winsock Initialized Found interface: {7E4AFCE4-2858-4AA4-9EC9-B91694C33FCD} Intel(R) 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection #2 - 0.0.0.0 NULL netmask - skipped Found interface: {2340C0DC-39A7-4482-8282-B77A8FDCFC8A} Realtek RTL8168C(P)/8111C(P) Family PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.20) - 192.168.1.168/255.255.255.0 Found interface: {DEAB3071-3FD2-4C63-B353-E5E60D5C3C17} Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network) #5 - 0.0.0.0 NULL netmask - skipped Sys_InitNetworking: adding loopback interface Found Intel CPU, features: SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE41 AVX TDM using AVX for SIMD processing. Found 0 new missions and 0 packages. ------ Initializing File System ------ Current search path: [M] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10/fms/vr_vol1 [M] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\fms\vr_vol1\vr_vol1.pk4 (167 files - 0xda24df0e) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10/ [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_wood01.pk4 (382 files - 0x54c704d0) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_window01.pk4 (399 files - 0x50a48869) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_stone_sculpted01.pk4 (466 files - 0x90cfd856) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_stone_natural01.pk4 (141 files - 0x4d0836ff) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_stone_flat01.pk4 (302 files - 0x671a22d2) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_stone_cobblestones01.pk4 (271 files - 0xc46ab14f) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_stone_brick01.pk4 (527 files - 0x8ac69a5e) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_sfx01.pk4 (69 files - 0x6589664a) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_roof01.pk4 (69 files - 0x24547b7) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_plaster01.pk4 (142 files - 0x9747529e) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_paint_paper01.pk4 (67 files - 0xa4a95a09) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_other01.pk4 (127 files - 0x36932451) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_nature01.pk4 (292 files - 0x8baa85ff) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_metal01.pk4 (509 files - 0x441d098f) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_glass01.pk4 (51 files - 0x3f3721e) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_fabric01.pk4 (43 files - 0x649daf73) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_door01.pk4 (177 files - 0xb0130166) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_decals01.pk4 (474 files - 0xe2ff12c6) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_carpet01.pk4 (131 files - 0xb4446f55) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_textures_base01.pk4 (436 files - 0xbe13aef2) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_standalone.pk4 (4 files - 0xb3f36d20) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_sound_vocals_decls01.pk4 (341 files - 0x7ceaaf6d) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_sound_vocals07.pk4 (1111 files - 0x67d07bcc) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_sound_vocals06.pk4 (696 files - 0x44c85e78) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_sound_vocals05.pk4 (119 files - 0x6cf23214) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_sound_vocals04.pk4 (2869 files - 0xd7ec1256) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_sound_vocals03.pk4 (743 files - 0xb3f2e0f1) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_sound_vocals02.pk4 (1299 files - 0x5092940e) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_sound_vocals01.pk4 (82 files - 0xf4d326b2) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_sound_sfx02.pk4 (605 files - 0x31673482) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_sound_sfx01.pk4 (987 files - 0x1be1f1f2) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_sound_ambient_decls01.pk4 (8 files - 0x9404877c) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_sound_ambient03.pk4 (24 files - 0xd28ca9ec) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_sound_ambient02.pk4 (163 files - 0x84efad22) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_sound_ambient01.pk4 (220 files - 0xee228c81) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_prefabs01.pk4 (1018 files - 0xaf4d4650) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_player01.pk4 (127 files - 0xd983fc45) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_models_decls01.pk4 (101 files - 0x7acb73c6) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_models02.pk4 (2262 files - 0x357310a0) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_models01.pk4 (3357 files - 0xea32fa8c) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_gui_credits01.pk4 (49 files - 0xbff51863) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_gui01.pk4 (760 files - 0xbb24734e) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_fonts01.pk4 (696 files - 0x7c5027bf) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_env01.pk4 (176 files - 0x8bd4045b) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_defs01.pk4 (194 files - 0xde333662) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_base01.pk4 (208 files - 0xaf435101) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_ai_steambots01.pk4 (52 files - 0xc6279c12) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_ai_monsters_spiders01.pk4 (80 files - 0xc50c13ac) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_ai_humanoid_undead01.pk4 (55 files - 0x25e463ad) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_ai_humanoid_townsfolk01.pk4 (104 files - 0xa6f7c573) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_ai_humanoid_pagans01.pk4 (10 files - 0x566fb35a) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_ai_humanoid_nobles01.pk4 (51 files - 0x5ca54cab) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_ai_humanoid_mages01.pk4 (8 files - 0x5e7a666b) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_ai_humanoid_heads01.pk4 (100 files - 0x45ec787e) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_ai_humanoid_guards01.pk4 (379 files - 0xbc2cde8d) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_ai_humanoid_females01.pk4 (172 files - 0xc7de4598) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_ai_humanoid_builders01.pk4 (91 files - 0x6dea9b57) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_ai_humanoid_beasts02.pk4 (229 files - 0x886c9a98) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_ai_humanoid_beasts01.pk4 (23 files - 0xba9da54c) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_ai_base01.pk4 (9 files - 0x1de319e8) [C] C:\All Games\TDM 2.10\tdm_ai_animals01.pk4 (82 files - 0x91388f45) File System Initialized. -------------------------------------- Couldn't open journal files ----- Initializing Decls ----- ------------------------------ I18N: SetLanguage: 'english'. I18N: Found no character remapping for english. I18N: 1334 strings read from strings/english.lang I18N: 'strings/fm/english.lang' not found. execing default.cfg Gamepad modifier button assigned to 6 execing Darkmod.cfg execing DarkmodKeybinds.cfg execing DarkmodPadbinds.cfg Gamepad modifier button assigned to 6 Couldn't exec mission.cfg - file does not exist. Couldn't exec autoexec.cfg - file does not exist. I18N: SetLanguage: 'english'. I18N: Found no character remapping for english. I18N: 1334 strings read from strings/english.lang I18N: 'strings/fm/english.lang' not found. ----- Initializing OpenAL ----- Setup OpenAL device and context OpenAL: found device 'OpenAL Soft on TOSHIBA-TV (NVIDIA High Definition Audio)' [ACTIVE] OpenAL: found device 'OpenAL Soft on Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)' OpenAL: found device 'OpenAL Soft on Realtek Digital Output(Optical) (Realtek High Definition Audio)' OpenAL: found device 'OpenAL Soft on Realtek Digital Output (Realtek High Definition Audio)' OpenAL: device 'OpenAL Soft on TOSHIBA-TV (NVIDIA High Definition Audio)' opened successfully OpenAL: HRTF is available OpenAL vendor: OpenAL Community OpenAL renderer: OpenAL Soft OpenAL version: 1.1 ALSOFT 1.21.1 OpenAL: found EFX extension OpenAL: HRTF is disabled (reason: 0 = ALC_HRTF_DISABLED_SOFT) OpenAL: found 256 hardware voices ----- Initializing OpenGL ----- Initializing OpenGL subsystem ...getting default gamma ramp: success ...registered window class ...registered fake window class ...calling CDS: ok ...created window @ 0,0 (1600x900) Initializing OpenGL driver ...getting DC: succeeded ...PIXELFORMAT 12 selected ...creating GL context: core-fc ...making context current: succeeded ...initializing QGL ------- Input Initialization ------- Initializing DirectInput... mouse: DirectInput initialized. keyboard: DirectInput initialized. ------------------------------------ OpenGL vendor: NVIDIA Corporation OpenGL renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970/PCIe/SSE2 OpenGL version: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 560.94 core Checking required OpenGL features... v - using GL_VERSION_3_3 v - using GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc v - using WGL_VERSION_1_0 v - using WGL_ARB_pixel_format Checking optional OpenGL extensions... v - using GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic maxTextureAnisotropy: 16.000000 v - using GL_ARB_stencil_texturing v - using GL_EXT_depth_bounds_test v - using GL_ARB_buffer_storage v - using GL_ARB_texture_storage v - using GL_ARB_multi_draw_indirect v - using GL_ARB_vertex_attrib_binding X - GL_ARB_compatibility not found v - using GL_KHR_debug v - using WGL_EXT_swap_control Max active texture units in fragment shader: 32 Max combined texture units: 192 Max anti-aliasing samples: 32 Max geometry output vertices: 1024 Max geometry output components: 1024 Max vertex attribs: 16 ---------- R_ReloadGLSLPrograms_f ----------- Linking GLSL program cubeMap ... Linking GLSL program bumpyEnvironment ... Linking GLSL program environment ... Linking GLSL program fog ... Linking GLSL program oldStage ... Linking GLSL program blend ... Linking GLSL program soft_particle ... Linking GLSL program gaussian_blur ... Linking GLSL program testImageCube ... --------------------------------- Font fonts/english/stone in size 12 not found, using size 24 instead. --------- Initializing Game ---------- The Dark Mod 2.12/64, win-x86_64, code revision 10651 Build date: Feb 24 2024 Initializing event system ...890 event definitions Initializing class hierarchy ...173 classes, 897120 bytes for event callbacks Initializing scripts --------- Game Map Shutdown ---------- --------- Game Map Shutdown done ----- ERROR:Error: file script/virtual_rooms.script, line 42: Unknown value "getPersistentFloat" -------------------------------------- Error during initialization. Error: file script/virtual_rooms.script, line 42: Unknown value "getPersistentFloat" Shutting down OpenGL subsystem ...wglMakeCurrent( NULL, NULL success ...deleting GL context: success ...releasing DC: success ...destroying window ...resetting display ...restoring hardware gamma: success ...shutting down QGL Which to me is all rather meaningless.

yeah the proton runtimes are usually better atleast for some games a few of the more obscure older games must use wine because of some directx shenaningans vulkan cannot handle. been on off linux for decades myself my first try was with the now defunct corel linux. corel's linux distro was actually really nice and sported a more streamlined environment than what was usually the norm back then. After that i had a stint with mandrake linux for some years and was actually hired to setup a workstation environment for a small company who needed someone with knowledge of setting up samba. also had a few test runs with BSD with the now defunct PC-BSD (actually still exist but is now called ghost bsd). i kinda like BSD but it does suffer from comming late to the game because of a lawsuit by SCO who accused them of stealing code which was debunked but cost them precious time so they newer really got big in the desktop environment. instead they started focussing on the server market with some success. there have been a few attempts at catching up with linux but so far without much success. ghostbsd is quite nice though if you have compatible hardware (which means something a good deal older than what we have now). NomadBSD is another one but it is mostly used as a live environment (you can still install it but expect some hardware problems on newer systems). lutris has been rather weird at times. some distros had major stability problems with it over some patch levels. Actually the worst experience i had with it was on ZorinOS but i guess they got it sorted. it crashed constantly when i last used Zorin and the gui was completely bonkers i could barely see what i needed to input because the scaling was all over the place lol. Then i hit on Solus and everything worked right clean and was a joy to use, sadly a kernel update broke my install because it mucked up the gfx card drivers for nvidia cards. luckily it is now fixed and working rather well i must say .

Well, you were part of the discussion. The reason for the precedence choice was to support dynamic EFX in the future: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21797-efx-preset-spawnarg-for-location-entities/#findComment-495076 I'm sorry this change somehow ruined your experience. If you find the tedious practice of using the EFX files more 'confiniant', feel free to do so, they are still supported after all.