Incline True Thief 4 Dark Mod is released

[Rinslin Merwind]

I don't get people complaining about lack of official campaign. Same deal with Call of Chernobyl - so much freedom yet people want some generic crap to ride the rail.

Maybe people tired from from sandboxes without any plot and somewhat logical purpose in your actions? Let's take your S.T.A.L.K.E.R example: sure there some fun in find loot (artifact/drop from stalkers/mutant parts) -> sell it and your old gear -> buy new gear -> proceed doing process again, but it only fun until you have best equipment and weapon in game with 100000000000 bank account.
After this point any your actions in hoarding loot and money is pointless and you trying to find ANYTHING to do in game where all npc repeat scripted lines, mutants spawns in same places, no vehicles available and retards bandits trying to rob you while you wearing top armor and weapons.
In my opinion sometimes plot help to create better experience in game, even some simple reason why your character started his journey and what kind of thing he trying to achieve in radioactive shit hole filled with mutants, anomalies and bandits.
Hell, you don't even need some complicated main quest, just add possibility to leave Zone with some ending slides which depends on how your action affected balance in Zone (and how your bank account affected your life outside of Zone) and it would be better than "freedom" in mindless grind.
Don't get me wrong, I not shitting on CoC. I just trying to tell you that plot sometimes VERY important to create positive view on experience.

In case of Thief series I feel like setting and plot made first 2 games more interesting than if they was made as pack of random missions with no connection to each other. I mean you can feel that targeted by you mansion exist as part of the bigger world, you can find notes, diaries, books about what happened in previous missions and some information about setting in general from political rant of guards to legends and myths in books. Don't get me wrong, I don't call missions that people made bad or something, they I believe really fun.
But first thief game was story driven game (devs designed locations after plot was written) and second thief game (there was a bit different design principle, but still) had heavy plot too, these games was not sandbox at all.
So without plot there not the same wholesome experience as it would be. Just saying.

 

[Melcar]

But who is going to write said plot? Most of the guys doing these FMs are just hardcore stealth fans that enjoy the mechanics. You need competent writers.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Yeah, like writing not-cringe-worthy or edgy or Twilight-tier romantic notes ingame is an accomplishment for these folks and you want some plot that have high chance of sucking hard?
nothx

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

But who is going to write said plot? Most of the guys doing these FMs are just hardcore stealth fans that enjoy the mechanics. You need competent writers.

Competent writers (tm) is subjective term, since tastes on writing is different for each human being on this planet. Nobody starts his career already famous and with experience, so it worth trying to create something even if you haven't got any "professional expert" to guide you.

Yeah, like writing not-cringe-worthy or edgy or Twilight-tier romantic notes ingame is an accomplishment for these folks and you want some plot that have high chance of sucking hard?
nothx

With that attitude nothing possible and nothing should be created ever again. Guess who being edgy in this case?

 

[Melcar]

But who is going to write said plot? Most of the guys doing these FMs are just hardcore stealth fans that enjoy the mechanics. You need competent writers.

Competent writers (tm) is subjective term, since tastes on writing is different for each human being on this planet. Nobody starts his career already famous and with experience, so it worth trying to create something even if you haven't got any "professional expert" to guide you.

Yeah, like writing not-cringe-worthy or edgy or Twilight-tier romantic notes ingame is an accomplishment for these folks and you want some plot that have high chance of sucking hard?
nothx

With that attitude nothing possible and nothing should be created ever again. Guess who being edgy in this case?

I did say competent, not fucking good. There are more than a few decent amateurish writers out there that could write a good story for the game. It's not a trivial task however, and as I stated, most of the guys doing FMs are stealth enthusiasts and I doubt they would bother for more than a simple fanfiction. This happens all the time in opensource game projects too. Writers and graphics artists are in short supply, and the mostly programmers leading those projects are not always interested in those tasks.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Well, now I see your point. I bit sad that writers in short supply. Although graphics artists imo not in THAT short supply.

 

[Melcar]

In short supply in so far as these kind of projects go. These are for the most part hobbies and unpaid game mods. Most of the people working on these things and passionate enough tend to be programmers and/or gamers with some programing skills. Not a lot of writers and artists for some reason. It's not that no one wants a good story and/or grand plot. It's just that no one is available to do it. No one is being discouraged from doing so.

 

[Melan]

As things go, stories (and gameplay) in fan missions is sometimes good. Stories and gameplay in most pro games released today are utterly mediocre at best. Fanmade stuff at least gives me a sliver of hope.

 

[unfairlight]

Goldwell usually has a story in most of his mission, not too lengthy or detailed but they are well done as a backdrop for what is going. Collaboration missions have happened before in TDM, Penny Dreadful and Chronicles of Skullduggery come to mind. Seeing a collab mission between Goldwell and grayman would be cool. I'd also like bikerdude to collab because he is still a talented mapper, but at the same time he has really screwed up time after time again, something that Melan is familiar with.

 

[udm]

It's been months since I played TDM due to a work schedule that's packed back-to-back. I am feeling the onset of withdrawal symptoms.

Srsly tho, there aren't many games that make me feel this way.

 

[Vagiel]

Are the original campaigns recreated in dark mod?

 

[forumvisitor#451]

I believe they can't do that actually. And why would you anyway? You can play original Thief games. For me Dark Mod is a little bit more detailed/granular in gameplay so it offers a bit different experience.

 

[udm]

Yeah but TDM's movement mechanics actually feel better, particularly when it comes to mantling. I've always thought Shock 2 works better with the Dark Engine because it has more right-angled surfaces, making navigation easy. Some of Dark Project and Metal Age's maps were navigation hell, particularly Mage Tower and The Sword.

 

[Valky]

I haven't played any TDM missions because I'm resolved to do T1/2 and their fan missions first, but I've read that TDM isn't as good as the originals at sound.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Yeah but TDM's movement mechanics actually feel better, particularly when it comes to mantling. I've always thought Shock 2 works better with the Dark Engine because it has more right-angled surfaces, making navigation easy. Some of Dark Project and Metal Age's maps were navigation hell, particularly Mage Tower and The Sword.

Mantling in newdark thief 1 and 2 is much easier than it was before. Actually it's better than TDM. You can mantle on any surface.

 

[udm]

Yeah but TDM's movement mechanics actually feel better, particularly when it comes to mantling. I've always thought Shock 2 works better with the Dark Engine because it has more right-angled surfaces, making navigation easy. Some of Dark Project and Metal Age's maps were navigation hell, particularly Mage Tower and The Sword.

Mantling in newdark thief 1 and 2 is much easier than it was before. Actually it's better than TDM. You can mantle on any surface.

Does the GOG version come with newdark automatically when installed?

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Yeah but TDM's movement mechanics actually feel better, particularly when it comes to mantling. I've always thought Shock 2 works better with the Dark Engine because it has more right-angled surfaces, making navigation easy. Some of Dark Project and Metal Age's maps were navigation hell, particularly Mage Tower and The Sword.

Mantling in newdark thief 1 and 2 is much easier than it was before. Actually it's better than TDM. You can mantle on any surface.

Does the GOG version come with newdark automatically when installed?

I believe so.

 

[udm]

Then the issues were still there in my last playthrough. Had a hell of a time (not in a good way) moving up weird geometry in The Sword, Mage Tower, Trail of Blood, etc. Maybe I just suck, IDK, but mantling never works the way I want it to with angled/moving brushes/blocks.

 

[Jazz_]

I haven't played any TDM missions because I'm resolved to do T1/2 and their fan missions first, but I've read that TDM isn't as good as the originals at sound.

The atmosphere in TDM fms is nothing like Thief 1/2, I personally don't like it at all; it's too grimdark and there's none of the humor, levity and charm of the original games, it feels like you are playing medieval Doom 3 with stealth rather than Thief.

 

[unfairlight]

That's entirely dependent on what FM by what author you are playing on.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Inexplicably was overwhelmed with the urge to rub some Thief all over my face this evening (Nothing to do with the date I'm quite sure) so I loaded up TDM and gave it a whirl. Have yet to start digging into downloading missions, but I'm impressed a bit. Graphics, ambient sound, music, all quite good for a fan thing. Physics however are wonky as absolute hell (Sure hope rope swinging isn't a common requirement because Jesus) and things are super rough once you see some NPCs, especially combat. The voice acting isn't up to snuff either which is unsurprising given how good the VA is in Thief. Speaking of the combat, the stiff animations turned me off hard, but once I got a handle on it it grew on me. It's still clunky and obviously not something you want to engage in if it can be helped, but felt a smidge deeper than Thief 1 and 2 swordfighting. Dunno if I'll stick to TDM too long since I've got a lot of mole popping lined up to play, but it did give a pretty good impression.

 

[Skdursh]

I haven't played any TDM missions because I'm resolved to do T1/2 and their fan missions first, but I've read that TDM isn't as good as the originals at sound.

The atmosphere in TDM fms is nothing like Thief 1/2, I personally don't like it at all; it's too grimdark and there's none of the humor, levity and charm of the original games, it feels like you are playing medieval Doom 3 with stealth rather than Thief.

It sounds like you've only played one FM, didn't like it because it was "new" and "different" and we must hate the things that are different and then decided to throw a blanket of "it's bad" on the whole thing. What I'm trying to get around to tell you here is this: You're retarded and wrong. There are quite a few FMs that as a whole are better than the best missions that the original games had to offer.

 

[Skdursh]

I haven't played any TDM missions because I'm resolved to do T1/2 and their fan missions first, but I've read that TDM isn't as good as the originals at sound.

That's just wrong, especially when comparing it to Thief 1, which had absolute garbage sound.

 

[Skdursh]

Yeah but TDM's movement mechanics actually feel better, particularly when it comes to mantling. I've always thought Shock 2 works better with the Dark Engine because it has more right-angled surfaces, making navigation easy. Some of Dark Project and Metal Age's maps were navigation hell, particularly Mage Tower and The Sword.

Mantling in newdark thief 1 and 2 is much easier than it was before. Actually it's better than TDM. You can mantle on any surface.

Does the GOG version come with newdark automatically when installed?

No. I had to download and install NewDark and everything else.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Yeah but TDM's movement mechanics actually feel better, particularly when it comes to mantling. I've always thought Shock 2 works better with the Dark Engine because it has more right-angled surfaces, making navigation easy. Some of Dark Project and Metal Age's maps were navigation hell, particularly Mage Tower and The Sword.

Mantling in newdark thief 1 and 2 is much easier than it was before. Actually it's better than TDM. You can mantle on any surface.

Does the GOG version come with newdark automatically when installed?

No. I had to download and install NewDark and everything else.

Well, Gog version comes with newdark, but it's version 1.26