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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.

I recently found this 2022 album of environmental sound ambience (no music) on Soundcloud, by an author going by the moniker of "Cyberwave Orchestra". It's likely not royalty-free and you have to buy it and such, but I think it might be useful for FM authors if they want a few more custom ambient soundscapes for their FMs. The tracks loop. Having listened to the album, I think the most useful for TDM FM purposes would be the sound ambience of outdoors nature ("Mountain Canyon", "From Dusk Till Dawn", "The Swamps at Night", the "Cursed Lands", "Cursed Lands 2" tracks), underground spaces ("Secret Cave 2"), maybe industrial ("The Great Mine" and "The Great Mine 2", I suppose), dungeon/prison spaces ("Dungeon of Sorrow", "Dungeon of Madness", "Chambers of Hell (No Boiling)", "Chambers of Hell 2") and some of the rural ambience (the "Fishing Village", "Fishing Village At Night" ambience tracks, "Summer Night Near The Village"). The tracks with more urban sound ambience aren't bad, but might not be quite what we need for most TDM mission night time town/city ambience. IMHO, they feel like mostly daytime ambience. The two "Port Town" and "Port Town (No Bells)" ambience tracks seem by far the best fit for town ambience of TDM. "Village on a Windy Day" could work for dusk and the early evening, but not night. "Onboard the Ship (No Voices)" might work for a ship docked in port at night time, but it might feel a bit loud to FM-builder tastes. I'd suggest lowering the volumes and doing similar tweaks.

It's a pity Bienie hasn't visited since late 2022, because I've finally found the time to play this mission (to conclude the Twelve Days of Christmas and the main winter holiday season) and I really did enjoy it. Though it has a fairly gritty atmosphere and keeps the Christmas-y atmosphere more on the subtle side, it did genuinely feel like an appropriate holiday mission. One where the theme and story also impacts the nature of the major and minor objectives in a believable way. As far as I'm concerned, a two thumbs up, and this is definitely joining the ranks of Christmas-themed FMs for Thief I've played in the past, as their The Dark Mod FM cousin. I don't know that many winter FMs in TDM that have an explicit or hinted-at Christmas theme (and most of those are from the older seasonal/holiday FM contest), so The Night of Reluctant Benefaction receives a high standing in my top favourite Christmas-themed Thief and TDM missions. I think this is a classic I'll try to replay annually during the Christmas season. Speaking of... My first playthrough took me around 1 hour, 13 minutes and 35 seconds, and the second playthrough after that was a speedrun, that took me around 31 minutes. I only found about one or two of the seven extra secrets, but at least there's more to explore next time, and I'm pretty good at completing all the main objectives and the three good deeds. The second playthough wasn't just ghosting-focused (with only 1 knockout this time, compared to 2 on my first run), it was also a no-saving-at-all run. Initially, I did have to restart it a few times, but I did manage a near-flawless speedrun in the end. I daresay I'd even recommend this mission as a good example of a small, but complex enough mission, that beginning FM authors can take some degree of inspiration, in terms of how even limited space is used effectivelly and how you can have plenty of verticality to a mission, even without any use of rope arrows. I was even somewhat surrpised how many windows were accessible to the player, and at least one could even have its lock picked, even if you didn't have the key. Speaking of, this mission wisely avoids devolving into a key hunt, and you have plenty of flexibility on how to navigate various areas of the mission. I'd suggest everyone pay attention to ceiling lamp lit corridors and rooms in some of the upper levels of the buildings, as those can get tricky if you want a stealthy entry and don't want to startle the locals. That's my review of this fine little holiday mission. I don't know if Bienie will ever read this review or not, but if he ever does, I can honestly say the entire FM fulfilled my expectations several times over. Good work, Bienie. Thank you.

Right! Great FM too, although I tend to bias on the side of gameplay-heavy FMs over storytelling-heavy ones, and it was definitely the latter. But it was still objectively great & I still really loved it.

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.

Back in the day, Tels managed a squad of volunteer translators for TDM. I am not Tels, and could never do that. Nowadays, language translation using AI, either traditional machine learning (ML) models or large language models (LLMs), is common and increasingly fluent. It is often used as an adjunct to speed the work of professional human translators. By itself, AI translation can be imperfect but usually sufficient. Can this "sufficient" approach be used for TDM, to expedite translations? Let's see. I gave some initial thought to a bulk-translation daemon that might range across FMs and fill in all missing translations, without necessarily involving mappers. In the future, possibly AI could tackle that whole enchilada. I was at first visualizing something more modest: a backbone in a standard programming language (I sketched out C++ and C# projects, but lots of other possibilities) that would make calls to an API (I looked at those of Google Translate and ChatGPT). However, I changed focus due to certain concerns... Different FMs, and subsets with each FM, would likely have far better translations if they were properly grouped, ordered, and translated separately, with an appropriate context (e.g., phrase engineering) added. The FM's mapper is best placed to provide this grouping and context. I'll detail what I mean in the next few posts. The mapper would not be expected to know any TDM-supported languages besides English. Instead, each translated phrase could be back-translated to English and examined. Is the "round-trip" meaning OK, even if the English words have changed? Problematic translations could have their context tweaked and rerun. Many AI systems, particularly for API access, require a billing commitment (e.g., credit card). For a professional translator, this is no problem, and subscriptions allow access to more (and putatively better) models and higher quotas. This seems less appealing for TDM. A few paid AI systems have a no-subscription, pay-as-you-go account tier. The cost per translate is typically pennies. But it does introduce quota- and expense-management, and may exclude API usage. Access via API requires an API key (or at the higher end more elaborate security regime), with attendant key-security headaches. Which AI model is thought "best" for translation? Doesn't matter too much, because we can't afford the best. Furthermore, there's endless churn among AI models, with antidotal reports that a given model fluctuates in quality over time, and successor models can be worse than their predecessors. So, with these concerns in mind, I looked for public web-based AI sites that require no billing and provide low-quota but adequate AI. The mapper would enter and retrieve data manually. I will focus on ChatGPT in this exploration, after a quick preliminary test confirmed some promise. Also, as this exploration proceeds, I hope to propose changes to TDM to make it more viable for "sufficient" quality machine translation. Problem areas are incomplete fonts, space-constraints, and layout issues for translated strings. My proposals will likely surface as separate forum threads. That's enough for now. I'll be trying for 1 or 2 substantive posts per week, as I tackle a particular FM.

Mod that polishes several sound aspects that affect the gameplay. TDM 2.12 introduced a subtle rebalance to player footstep sound volumes. This was meant to be the first step towards an overhaul for all footstep sounds, both in volume levels and variety, since quite a few materials share sound files. 2.13 added "improved footstep sounds for broken glass and ice material surfaces" Almost one year later since 2.13, this project has completely stagnated; as a regular user that tried to chip in, I've seen the motivation fade out from the devs and mappers involved. So instead of letting it rot, I've made the early attempts to achieve this overhaul into a mod. The scope has widened a bit, since I decided to tackle annoying things such as alert 3 & 4 duration or sound propagation for blackjack/sword impact stims. Repository to report issues: https://codeberg.org/SilverKeeper/tdm-sound-polish Installation Latest release: https://codeberg.org/SilverKeeper/tdm-sound-polish/releases/download/v1.0/Sound Polish Mod v1.0.7z The mod comes in three versions: x_sound_polish_mod.pk4 is the main version, using TDM Core sounds but with handpicked improved files from other soundpacks. Read the changelog for a detailed listing. x_sound_polish_mod_VoltaFootstepMod.pk4 has the handpicked files from the main version + footstep sounds from Kingsal's "Volta" series, both for the player and humanoid AI. x_sound_polish_mod_ThiefierSoundsByGin.pk4 has the handpicked files from the main version + the footstep sounds from Gin's "Thiefier Sounds" soundpack, both for the player and humanoid AI. Copy one of those to TDM root folder. Additionally, you can copy autocommands.cfg or my personal autocommands_full.cfg and rename it as autocommands.cfg. Look at Gameplay and TDM settings for a brief explanation. The `_Docs` folder has detailed documentation on my definition changes, final footstep propagation values (based on TDM Core `tdm_propagated_sounds.def` propagation values) and a list of FMs with custom footstep sounds to keep track of potential incompatibilities. Overview Footsteps .sndshd files for humanoid and player footsteps were a complete mess. They were mixed between 3 files when they should've been properly categorized in 2, materials shared one shader for the AI and the player, and in rare cases they outright played the wrong sound files (player carpet footsteps were "placeholders" currently used as AI barefoot footsteps). This has been the hardest part of the mod and hopefully it serves as template for TDM Core files. Both the player and AI (but particularly the player) are too quiet when they walk. The player barely hears their own footsteps, but the AI reacts strongly to them. Material sound shader values have been balanced according to the sound propagation transmitted to the AI. Jumping shaders are the loudest and speed shaders decrease the volume from there the slower you move. AI shaders start being audible too late for them to serve as a warning; their `maxDistance` has been increased. Monsters were also too stealthy, specially spiders (and particularly the small spiders). Sound files themselves had room for improvement, too. Some files needed amplifying (without clipping, of course) to have more leeway with sound shader volumes. Others were disabled/pitch-modified/replaced. In particular, AI had some weak-sounding footstep sounds. Pitch-modified variants of the player footsteps have replaced the worst AI footstep sounds. Alternative versions with "Volta footsteps mod" by Kingsal and "Thiefier Sounds" by Gin have also been created. Sound propagation and AI While TDM AI reacts to sound reasonably well, the base volume of the player's walk and creep sound propagation shaders is a bit too high, triggering alert 2 too easily. Those have been decreased for a more enjoyable gameplay. Thief featured a bait mechanic in the form of stims triggered by slamming your blackjack or sword against objects. This was nerfed in Deadly Shadows; now even walls played impact sounds, but AI was deaf to them. Currently, TDM has the potential to bring the mechanic back, but it's undercooked. All materials play the same sound propagation shader, so AI only hears you bashing wood, regardless of the material... And even that does absolutely nothing to the alert level. I've improvised material-specific shaders for both the blackjack and the sword. There seems to be a problem with value modifiers for the weapon entities... I can't take advantage of the feature. Alert 3 & 4 have insane duration and fuzzyness values. AI takes forever to go back to alert 2; duration gets... multiplied? randomly by, at most, the fuzzyness value or any number below that. Those values have been decreased for a reasonable fail state, so players don't normalize quicksaving when they get caught. Stationary AIs should play their barks frequently so you can point them out by ear before stumbling upon them. TDM Core intervals are too wide... Now barks and snores will occur more frequently. Gameplay and TDM settings Frob distance for pickpocketting has a shorter distance than other actions in TDM. While in principiple this should make pickpocketting more "tense", the bump mechanic gets in the way here. Being caught because you miscalculated the timeframe before the AI would turn around is one thing; being caught because you bumped your head into their back from forward-leaning in another. Now frob distance of objects carried by AI is more consistent with the rest of TDM and closer to Thief. Several aspects of the movement are rather uncomfortable. Headbobbing is nauseating, footstep rate is very exaggerated and running speed feels slow. An autocommand.cfg file has been provided for this, as well as a complete autocommand_full.cfg with my personal settings for TDM. While the increased running speed shouldn't break anything, it is an opionated value from two FM authors and might not be balanced for the rest of TDM FMs. Credits & thanks Daft Mugi and WellingtonCrab for carrying the brief but powerful efforts to start cleaning this up, and for creating the Player Footstep Sounds Test Map. Daft Mugi in particular for sharing the tuned player sound propagation values and the pickpocketting frob distance overrides. WellingtonCrab in particular for helping with AI alert 3 & 4 values and mentioning their overrides for AI barks used in their FMs. Ujtudor for their "Collection of adjusted sounds". Kingsal for their "Volta footsteps mod". SeriousToni for their "Alternative Footstep Sound Package" mod. Gin for their "Thiefier Sounds" mod. If any dev is interested in starting and merging a stable implementation, I would suggest some considerations: Fix jumping stepvol modifiers, if they even exist. Right now the player perceives different ranges of noise when jumping, but AI always hears the loudest value possible... Make wiki documentation for every TDM material on how noisy their footsteps are for AIs. I've included all material final propagation values (as shown by the "tdm_spr_debug 1; con_noPrint 0" command) in a "_Docs" folder. Inspect all entity .def files to detect missing sound material definitions Besides that, sound files are all over the place. I would propose this for both sfx .pk4s: tdm_sound_sfx01.pk4 Move all player climbing files from sound/sfx/movement/footsteps in tdm_sound_sfx02.pk4 to a sound/sfx/movement/climbing folder here. Move all humanoid rustle files from sound/sfx/movement/footsteps in tdm_sound_sfx02.pk4 to sound/sfx/movement/rustles here. (and any other rustle files that wander around the .pk4s) tdm_sound_sfx02.pk4 Move all used player footsteps in sound/sfx/movement/footsteps or sound/sfx/movement/footsteps/human to sound/sfx/movement/footsteps/player. (You would need file duplication for some files, since core player declarations currently shares many files with NPCs...) Move all used NPC footsteps in sound/sfx/movement/footsteps to sound/sfx/movement/footsteps/human. Check and delete unused variation files of materials (there are a lot).

Lately I have started to play some of the more recent missions and some of these have lots of "own"/unique textures. Is it okay to use these assets (from released FMs) in one's own FMs? I'm referring to models/textures and sound etc, of course not chunks of the mission geometry or blatant plagiarism of readables etc. I guess some people have designed or bought assets for themselves but is it okay to use these textures/models as long as there is no explicit note in a readme etc, that opposes such "borrowing"?

Contributions downloads are at http://fidcal.com/DarkMod/index.htm Note that there is no dedicated beautiful sortable webpage list. I don't have time and also this means less delays. Just browse the folders and click on readmes and images and grab any zips. If anyone submits anything I can just upload it in a few minutes. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you wish to offer coding, modelling, or any other kind of help got to the I want to help forum for discussion. If you have any extensive assets you wish to discuss also you can go to the I want to help forum. If you simply want to share an FM, prefab(s), textures, whatever then post details in this thread (there are other websites for FMs too.) Generally these need to be zipped up with a description.txt plain text file and optionally an image, and uploaded somewhere I can get them such as a fileshare website like rapidshare. Any problem with that and if you have ftp I can arrange a direct upload to a private temporary folder on my website. All submissions to this thread should be accompanied by a short description summary to go on the download page and optionally a picture(s). Such submissions will be placed on my website download page (wip) at fidcal.com. Anything suspect for any reason I reserve the right to delete. I accept no liability for downtime or even no-continuance of the download section or even the entire website for any reason. Downloaders: I accept no liability if you download anything you'd rather not: download at your own risk. Oh yes, and I am not responsible for global warming, economic depression, you name it; I'm not responsible. From there, any mappers can download what they want. The Dark Mod Team may or may not assess some items for inclusion in future Dark Mod updates. FMs may be assessed for inclusion on the Dark Mod website. Anyone feel free to mirror the download folder. Any suggestions post in this thread too.

Virtual Rooms Vol.1 You are trapped in a virtual simulation of interconnected rooms, each holding its own challenge. Do you dare attempt the escape? Volume 1 marks the beginning of a journey. Future volumes of Virtual Rooms will be driven by the community: rooms will be created by different authors. We will set common rules as we go. Stay tuned for the upcoming kickoff of Volume 2! In the meantime, let know your thoughts about Volume 1 and "Virtual Rooms" as a concept. Feel free to criticize and/or suggest areas of improvement. Share your ideas. This initiative now belongs to all of you, members of this community and fans of The Dark Mod out there. EDIT - You can now discuss it here: [Alpha] Virtual Rooms Vol.2 Have fun Install instructions: Virtual Rooms Vol.1 is available in the in-game mission downloader. Alternatively, go to the "fms" folder, create the folder "vr_vol1" and place inside the pk4 file that you can download here. Room names, as reference: Known bugs: Cheers!

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 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)...

Even if it makes sense for it to be difficult, it doesn't feel very good in practice, in my opinion. I use forward-leaning constantly and the default distance reduces its usefulness; try shortening the gap while standing up and you'll bump against the AI back easily. It can also happen while crouching if the AI plays crouching animations. As for the other bit, I only see frob-fighting as a relevant factor; Auto Search bypasses the problem, and Frob helper can only help so much when the short distance and frob-fighting clash against each other. It's just that widening the frob distance improves the reliability of the frobbing for KOed AIs, even if the focus is still wonky. Sounds like a good idea for a small mod, in any case, making specific frob distances for KOed/dead AIs (if that's even possible). I was under the impression that the long cooldowns tempted Thief players to quickload in TDM (myself included). I have checked "Snowed Inn" values; they are indeed very short. Volta III are even shorter. This proves that even mappers feel the cooldowns are too long, though. I think my values were kind of a fluke because I didn't experiment too much to find my middle ground. I don't want AIs to be overly enthusiastic and go stomping loudly and yelling all the time, but getting surprised constantly doesn't add to the enjoyment. I'm also trying to play with a shorter tdm_ai_sightmax to balance out sight distance a bit, after @Wellingtoncrab told me about the variables. It's already in my autocommands as a commit.

[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.

Version 2 has been released. Nothing fancy: one bug-fix and minor adjustments. The original download link and the original name remain the same. Just download and overwrite. The download link can be found in the opening post. 1) Sword carries over missions There is a bug in the source code in file "def\tdm_campaign.def". At the end of the file "weapon_limit_sword" should be "weapon_limit_shortsword". I manually fixed this in all maps/rooms in version 2. 2) The zombie in room 5 (Purgatory) is easier to kill now Some people find the rope swing mechanic too challenging and this should alleviate frustration to some extent. 3) Fixed misalignment of the lamps in room 8 (Gallery) An oversight on my part. Really minor stuff. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In-game downloader The current internal name of the mission is "fms/vr_rooms" and I here request this to be changed to "fms/virtual_rooms_vol1" (or "fms/vr_vol1" if it needs to be shorter). This change means you all will have duplicates if version 2 gets updated in the repository. My advise if/when this happens is: Close the game Go to "fms/" and delete the "vr_rooms" folder A proper naming convention is important for collaborative initiatives (instructions, tutorials, organization, support...). Thanks all for your understanding.

============== -= 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:

Yeah, we get this kind of post every few years, about porting to whatever shiny new other engine is out there. For reasons already discussed, "porting" isn't even a good term for it, since you'd just be making an entirely new game practically from scratch. Just look at the size of our source code. The reason we moved to the Doom3 engine it in the first place was only because Thief Deadly Shadows didn't allow us to properly make good FMs. But now we can make FMs and it's open source. If there is some cool tech that the CryEngine or Unreal engines have, it's gonna be about infinitely easier to just port that cool tech into the TDM engine than vice versa, and in fact we've done that for a lot of cool new tech like soft shadows and ambient occlusion and the like. So that's really the way to go if you want to update the tech. And we're open source so you can do that. Anyway, all that said, one can still make a cool new TDM-inspired game in CryEngine, and I'd even encourage that to someone up to the challenge. For example I'd love to see a cyberpunk or modern stealth game, and that'd be good project for a new engine. I just think if they're making an entirely new game already, why not just make an entirely new game. Well one thing that might be cool is if someone made a game in another engine that could parse a TDM .pk4 file and open up as a map in itself. So then once you've made it, it already as all of our maps ready to play in it. I have an idea that that might not work well though, especially for custom things people put in the map. Also again, we can already play those maps now. If you're going to all that effort, let's have a new cool game with new cool maps!

Announcing the release of “A House of Locked Secrets” for The Dark Mod! Download Download the latest version of the Dark Mod here: http://www.thedarkmod.com/download-the-mod/ Download the mission here: Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/download/4awe6e756m12p71/ahouseoflockedsecrets.pk4 Southquarter: http://www.southquarter.com/tdm/fms/ahouseoflockedsecrets.pk4Taaki: http://darkmod.taaaki.za.net/fms/ahouseoflockedsecrets.pk4Fidcal.com: http://www.fidcal.com/darkuser/missions/ahouseoflockedsecrets.pk4 The mission should also shortly be up on the in-game downloader. General Notes -A House of Locked Secrets is a campaign, with two levels. -The mission is also a sequel to the Dark Mod FM “Requiem”. While you don’t need to have played Requiem to enjoy this mission, it is recommended, as it will help you better understand the lore of this corner of the TDM universe. -There is a companion novella to this series, Shadowcursed, available at Amazon.com or Smashwords.com. If you beat this FM, you can get a coupon code for 50% off the price! -The map you get of the manor is an automap which tells you which room you are currently in. Use it, along with the compass to help find your way. -Most inventory items in the game can be dropped, so no need to carry them around after they are no longer of any use. -If you use noclip or other console commands while playing, there is a good chance that you will break the intended flow of gameplay. Credits Mapping and Readables: Gelo R. Fleisher Voice Acting: Amber Collins, Bikerdude, Commander, Goldwell, Mortem Desino Additional scripting: Obsttorte, SteveL Additional textures and assets: Bikerdude, Crowind, Fidcal, Flanders, Goldwell, Grayman, Kyyrma, Melan, Nielsen, Sotha, Springheel Additional map optimization: Bikerdude Custom Soundtrack: Sarah Eide - www.saraheide.com Additional Music: cmusounddesign, Gigagooga, Lee Rosevere, Leonardo Badinella, Marianne Lihannah, NewEonOrchestra, Sarah Eide, Tabias Scot, Zoro. Additional Sounds: club20sound, ERH, geoneo0, Grayman, kevinkace, nothayama, qubodup, SoundsExciting, speedygonzo, swiftoid, viznoman. Testers: Airship Ballet, AluminumHaste, Baal, Bikerdude, Deadlove, demagogue, Diego, Dunedain19, gnartsch, Goldwell, Lowenz, Lux, nbohr1more, Oldjim, PranQster, SteveL, Xarg A note from the author After a lot of work ‘A House of Locked Secrets’ is finally ready for everyone to play. More than anything else, this FM was a team project. If the official TDM campaign never gets released, you might consider this to be the unofficial one, as almost everybody on the core TDM team lent a hand toward its completion. Of the many contributors, I especially want to thank SteveL whose custom code turned what was just an idea in my head into the FM you now get to play. I also want to thank Bikerdude, who performed a lot of optimization work on the map, and Goldwell whose voice brought to life many of the mission’s characters. If you like the music in the FM, check out the work of Sarah Eide (www.saraheide.com) who composed most of the custom soundtrack. Also, Marianne Lihannah makes a return from Requiem with a few songs, so check out her work too (www.funeralsinger.net). They'd both love to hear from you, so if you liked their music, let them know! On a personal note, I hope that this FM will give you a few hours of enjoyment, and if it does, feel free to drop me a line either in this forum thread, my work blog, or via email. In the future, other writing and game projects seem set to take up a lot of my time, so I give permission for anyone (preferably the TDM team) to update both Requiem and A House of Locked Secrets to fix any bugs or compatibility issues. I just ask that fixes be limited to correcting for glitches or for issues that come up due to future TDM releases. I do give permission for people to make visual & gameplay changes too but ask that you release these changes in a separate version than my release, and I ask that you make no changes to the story, readables, and plot. With that all out of the way, I want to thank you again for downloading and playing ‘A House of Locked Secrets’; I hope you enjoy it. God bless, Gelo “Moonbo” Fleisher

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

The mod's name is gonna see a change, since the scope has shifted a bit more since the last post. Besides including the overrides I attached before, AI alert 3 & 4 is gonna get a dramatic duration and fuzzyness decrease from core values and barks are going to be more frequent: meaning, guards are going to chill out before you get the temptation of quickloading, and they're going to mutter and snore way more frequently to prove they are alive. DaftMugi also shared with me another override for pickpocketting frob distance values, to make them closed to Thief's. Ironically, it also brings consistency to the general frob distance; TDM has longer distances for any other object, except items carried by AI. I can already see the argument that the shorter distance makes pickpocketting more "tense". The way I see it is that bump detection isn't a fun mechanic during this action, and the distance is annoying even when the AI has been knocked-out. If you are already in a hurry to get away with the loot because you are illuminated and the guard could turn around, you don't want to also worry about bumping your head against their back because you forward-leaned. Alerting them while crouched in a poorly chosen hiding spot actually makes the bump mechanic interesting; gives you a chance of getting away if the area is dark enough, or punishes you for being overconfident if not. I'll be checking all AI footstep declarations to be throughout and the monster walking volumes, then then release version 1.0 in Codeberg for easy versioning and issue tracking. I'm a bit unsure about the license; TDM LICENSE.txt says everything is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 "unless explicitly stated otherwise". TDM Modpack is Public Domain, on the other hand.

"Dame Fortune is a fickle mistress. Every time she opens a door, she throws a brick through your window..." I'm happy to announce that my second FM, "The Last Night on Crookshank Lane", is now available on the Mission Database: https://www.thedarkmod.com/missiondetails/?internalName=crookshank Backup download is also available here: https://share.anon-kenkai.com/crookshank.pk4 Big thanks to @Airship-Ballet, @wesp5, @JackFarmer, @taffernicus, @Bergante for beta testing and feedback. Special thanks to @datiswous for generously providing in-mission subtitles. This is a much bigger and more ambitious FM than my first attempt, and it ended up taking a year and a half to complete. It was also a very educational lesson in the importance of proper map optimization. It's a sort of soft-sequel to "The Threepenny Revue", but not part of a series per se, and can be played as a standalone mission. I took inspiration from FMs like "The Painter's Wife" in TDM, and "The Sound of a Burrick in a Room" from Thief Gold, and although I'd never put myself in the same league as either, I was always impressed by their size, scope, and detail. City exploration FMs have always been my favorite, and those maps and others like them inspired me to take a crack at something similar. Enoy!

The Adventures of Thomas: Lucy's Quest Author: gg 2022-06-20 Version: 1.1 Required TDM Version: 2.10 or higher EFX: Yes ============================================================== Cautionary note: This FM needs a strong CPU/GPU combination sufficient to play the more demanding TDM FMs. Just as for many or most of the new FMs being released with the new gfx possibilities opened up it does a world of good to tweak the advanced video settings for the best combination of settings for your PC. For example, on my weaker laptop I set shadows as stencil and soft shadows off. On my desktop I set shadows as maps and soft shadows medium. Bloom off. Ambient occlusion off. Since the FM was built and extensively tested at these settings I believe either should produce a satisfactory experience. ============================================================== Sound Credits: freemusicarchive.org music Aislinn04_-_Aislinn_-_Lovely_Maria freesound.org klankbeeld_horror_1 freesound.org/people/CarlosCarty/sounds/522687/ om_aum_mantra_male_chant_bb freesound.org/people/Still%20Frames/sounds/37720/ still_frames freemusicarchive.org music The_Mind_Orchestra_Bruwynn tecknic.bandcamp.com/album/the-dark-mod-ambience-and-atmospheres Zack Bower Ancient_2, _3, _5. Solemn_1 freesound.org/people/Jagadamba/sounds/256006/ group_chanting_om_aum ============================================================== Thanks to: The TDM/DR developers for producing such a beautiful machine. The keepers of the wiki pages which are looking very good these days. Sotha for his invaluable tutorial "The Bakery Job". This tutorial is a jewel. Springheel for creating an atmosphere. Bikerdude for... ideas how to do things and scale things. Playtesters and advisors Dragofer, wesp5, datiswous, shadow. datiswous pointed out some immersion breaking lighting faults, so I got the idea. wesp5 gave me some good advice on how to tell the story - so it's more understandable. Dragofer gave me some early advice on optimizing the mission, which gave me a couple of months work with results that are well worth it. Dragofer wrote a script which optimizes CPU calculations of AI interactions. Shadow helped by testing the script, as well as testing other attempts at optimization. With the script in action only the minimal of AI interactions in the player's vicinity are called to be calculated. The script provides a general benefit but the results vary from computer to computer. The script targets a CPU task. ============================================================== Gameplay: Notes attached to objectives contain essential information on gameplay, on who the good/bad guys are, on what the player must do, and why. Mandatory objectives are linear, directing the player along a route to the goal. Optional objectives can be completed anytime. ============================================================== CAUTION: spiders, rats, undead, necrophiles, cannibals, psychotic thugs, and some generally unsavory characters. No snakes, though. The spiders ate them. ==============================================================

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

The level of current missions for Thief Gold and Thief II is absolutely amazing, if you take the best missions avaialable. And, yes, they're another level than the older missions. There are some seriously talented people in thie Thief FM community, and, they've gotten better and better over the years. A great example for that is The Black Parade campaign. What I rather wonder is why so few of them ever made FMs for The Dark Mod (apart from people like Melan). I can only speculate, but, I guess that 1. they're used to the Dark engine and the level editor, and 2. they consider the Thief lore and gameplay superior. Which I sort of can understand. For example, what I always notice is that the lore and readables are much more elaborate and detailled in Thief FMs, AND FM authors actually stick to that lore, while in TDM, everyone seems to go his own way. The TDM lore is incomplete at best, and leaves much space for interpretation. I won't comment on the gameplay again, especially the blackjacking, I've done that enough in the past.

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.