Incline True Thief 4 Dark Mod is released

[Melan]

Behold: the announcement trailer for Goldwell's upcoming three-mission campaign!

 

[Repulsive]

Is this actually any good? How does it compare to Thief 1 - 3?

 

[JarlFrank]

It is good. I still like Thief 2 more but TDM does some things differently to the old games that you might consider improvements:

- it has better AI
- AI is harder to knock out and there are less exploits
- more dynamic lighting (although the last time I played it, it sometimes looked a little silly, like fire behind an oven grate that would cause wildly dancing shadows)
- sneaking is a little harder, running over stone and wood makes AI turn their head around and they can spot you that way
- yes, AIs here will often turn their heads into a direction they heard something from; vision cone follows their eyes. There are also some one-eyed AIs that are easier to sneak past from the blind side

But:

- the sound propagation isn't as good as in the old Thief games
- I find the visuals of the old Thiefs to be more atmospheric but that comes down entirely to taste; I just like late 90s/early 00s graphics better than the more modern-looking Doom 3 engine

As far as gameplay goes, it has all the things that Thief 1 and 2 had. It has flashbombs, it has rope arrows, it has climbing and mantling and all of that stuff. It's as faithful to the original gameplay principles as a spiritual sequel can be.
I haven't played TDM for a while (maybe 2 years) but I plan to get back into it and play some of the recent FMs. The quality of early TDM missions is a fair bit below the contemporary Thief FMs, but by now they're starting to reach the level of quality of the better T2 FMs.
So yes: TDM is definitely worth checking out if you like Thief. There are some top-tier fan missions available to play and since it's all entirely 100% free there is no reason not to try it out.

There is no official campaign though, only fan missions. Melan might be able to say how far the Crucible of Omens campaign has progressed so far.

 

[Morgoth]

Is there any chance the TDM folks could implement the recently released Steam Audio engine? Realistic sound propagation is really really important to a Thief game, and the one in TDM sucks.

 

[Melan]

Is this actually any good? How does it compare to Thief 1 - 3?

TBH the best way to confirm is to watch a Let's Play (there are tons) or just download it and play the starting missions (Training, A New Job, The Tears of St. Lucia).

There is no official campaign though, only fan missions. Melan might be able to say how far the Crucible of Omens campaign has progressed so far.

There is an official campaign now, and that's the three-mission series consisting of A New Job, St. Lucia and a yet unreleased mission scheduled for the next update. There are two more complete campaigns: No Honor Among Thieves (three missions) and the Thomas Porter Series (eight missions). The rest are in various stages of completion, though they are playable on a mission-by-mission basis.

The Crucible of Omens has recently been revived and we are looking into packing up the first mission (smaller and less complex than the prologue, but still huge). It is not any more official than any other campaign would be - although it reuses some maps originally designed for what would have been the official campaign.

Is there any chance the TDM folks could implement the recently released Steam Audio engine? Realistic sound propagation is really really important to a Thief game, and the one in TDM sucks.

No idea what that is, but unlikely unless someone comes in and implements it. TDM is a shoestring operation. People sometimes get the idea there is a large hidden team working silently behind the facade, but it's more like two or three really dedicated guys working their asses off. The current priority would be to get soft shadows working properly; there is an advanced prototype, but some key problems haven't been resolved yet, and SteveL, who did most of it has gotten a terrible case of burnout. Major features do get picked up sometimes, but they'd have to be backwards-compatible (i.e. they shouldn't break any existing maps).

 

[Repulsive]

It is good. I still like Thief 2 more but TDM does some things differently to the old games that you might consider improvements:

- it has better AI
- AI is harder to knock out and there are less exploits
- more dynamic lighting (although the last time I played it, it sometimes looked a little silly, like fire behind an oven grate that would cause wildly dancing shadows)
- sneaking is a little harder, running over stone and wood makes AI turn their head around and they can spot you that way
- yes, AIs here will often turn their heads into a direction they heard something from; vision cone follows their eyes. There are also some one-eyed AIs that are easier to sneak past from the blind side

But:

- the sound propagation isn't as good as in the old Thief games
- I find the visuals of the old Thiefs to be more atmospheric but that comes down entirely to taste; I just like late 90s/early 00s graphics better than the more modern-looking Doom 3 engine

As far as gameplay goes, it has all the things that Thief 1 and 2 had. It has flashbombs, it has rope arrows, it has climbing and mantling and all of that stuff. It's as faithful to the original gameplay principles as a spiritual sequel can be.
I haven't played TDM for a while (maybe 2 years) but I plan to get back into it and play some of the recent FMs. The quality of early TDM missions is a fair bit below the contemporary Thief FMs, but by now they're starting to reach the level of quality of the better T2 FMs.
So yes: TDM is definitely worth checking out if you like Thief. There are some top-tier fan missions available to play and since it's all entirely 100% free there is no reason not to try it out.

There is no official campaign though, only fan missions. Melan might be able to say how far the Crucible of Omens campaign has progressed so far.

Awesome reply, thanks. Going to DL it, heard mixed things which is why I held off playing it.

 

[Garrettt]

While the prologue mission for the crucible of omens campaign was technically very impressive I found myself burned out on it after an hour. If ever there was an example of a mission being TOO large that would be it.

So i'm really pleased that the next mission will be smaller, I think the mission will benefit from that.

 

[J_C]

We have also created a GreenLight presence on Steam. Please feel free to stop by and vote if you want The Dark Mod to be a permanent resident on the Steam platform.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=858048394

Damnit, this game has to get on Steam before the greenlight system is closed. I hope you are getting good votes.

 

[Melan]

Damnit, this game has to get on Steam before the greenlight system is closed. I hope you are getting good votes.

We're in the #1 position. That's not a guarantee, but let's hope it helps.

 

[J_C]

Damnit, this game has to get on Steam before the greenlight system is closed. I hope you are getting good votes.

We're in the #1 position. That's not a guarantee, but let's hope it helps.

Valve walkes mysterious ways when it comes to greenlight, but I hope the #1 position will get you there either way.

Um...what would being on Steam mean by the way? What extras can you offer through that service?

 

[J_C]

I hope you get greenlit on the next batch, because this is ridiculous. You have 10 thousand votes and you are No.1, and you are still not there? Come on Gaben, what do you need? Do you want them to send you some hamburgers?

 

[Melan]

No worries - this just in:

Still needs some t's crossed and i's dotted, but it is done.

Thanks to all who voted and/or commented... now go learn how to make a mission.

 

[MachineCommander]

now go learn how to make a mission.

I've been toying with the idea of learning it. I'll set some time aside once my schedule clears up a bit.

Congrats on getting Greenlit!

 

[J_C]

:ehue:

 

[udm]

Bros, a few weeks ago I played A House of Locked Secrets and it's really good. Give it a try, it's free!

Spoiler

No seriously, it's very well-made. Also, watch out for the bad man.

 

[Goldwell]

I had posted this before on The Dark Mod forums but thought I would post it here with a bit of an update



There are a couple of things that have changed since I uploaded that trailer but Lord Edgar's Disappearance is a four part campaign I am making for the dark mod. The first mission is a rainy city mission that's mostly done and the second mission is a dock mission mostly done, the third mission is a small city area and the final fourth mission is a museum heist mission. The reason why I wanted to do this was because I wanted to have a story arc spanned out over multiple missions rather than the usual beginning middle and end all contained within one mission. I find that my level design and writing definitely improve having different environments to expand the main story arc out over.

I am going to be pushing it back to release in the spring time, however I have a large snowy city mission that's 90% finished and it's coming out this winter (my current goal is November but that may slip back to December) and I have another smaller mission that I hope to get out in the meantime.

None of these missions feature aliens btw

 

[skacky]

New mission from Spoonman, author of the excellent Full Moon Fever and The Ravine and master of minimalist classic Thief experience in TDM with thick TDP-like atmosphere. As usual this is a really good mission with very deep shadows and a disorienting layout, although not as crazy as The Ravine's.
http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/19105-fan-mission-king-of-the-mountain-by-spoonman-18092017/

 

[Melan]

Seconded: spoonman's mission is excellent, large, and has the tension of a proper prison escape mission.

It is nice to finally see some diversity in TDM, too!

Spoiler

One of the AI is a woman with a man's voice.

 

[Rasczak-Roughneck]

I would pay actual money for this. Is there any way I can donate to the developers?

Not to be a graphics whore like a lot of YouTube users commenting on this game, as I do think this game looks fantastic as is due to a combination of the engine aging pretty well and the art style, but I'm curious if some of the enhancements made to id Tech 4 by modders (parallax occlusion mapping + HD textures, HDR + tonemapping, soft shadows + SSAO, tessellated characters, real time reflections) would be possible in this. There's probably underlying limitations, and I wouldn't know since I'm not a developer and I didn't work on this. But I'm curious.

 

[Melan]

Soft shadows are in the testing phase, and coming along nicely. I think some of that other stuff is also in the works, along with a good deal of performance optimising work.

It is going on fairly slowly because people are doing it in their free time, but there is constant progress on the dev forums.

 

[Rasczak-Roughneck]

Soft shadows are in the testing phase, and coming along nicely. I think some of that other stuff is also in the works, along with a good deal of performance optimising work.

It is going on fairly slowly because people are doing it in their free time, but there is constant progress on the dev forums.

Nice.

If there is any way I can donate, let me know.

 

[Rasczak-Roughneck]

Also, is the lack of directional sound an engine limitation?

 

[Goldwell]

If there is any way I can donate, let me know.

Start making FMs!

 

[luj1]

Wow, I can't believe this went below my radar. How long is the campaign? Is it finished?

 

[Goldwell]

Just released my new fan mission, The Accountant 1: Thieves and Heirs

Briefing video



Author note

This is a brand new mission and a new entry into the accountant series.

There are some different than usual puzzles in this FM, so if you find yourself stuck try to think about your pathway forward in a logical manner. And if you're still having troubles then pop by this thread and ask (preferably with spoiler tags).

This FM is brand new and serves as the first installment in The Accountant series, a few years back there was a small prologue style mission released however I felt that it did not represent The Accountant series so I decided to go back to the drawing board and do a whole new mission that's both larger, has better level design and has a story that lines up closer to what I plan to do with the accountant series.

The mission is medium sized and you can expect between 30-90 minutes to complete it depending on your playstyle.


Screen shots

Download
Available in the in-game downloader for TDM, and if you're after an off-site mirror: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mmLji5xgKALQAes_Oo0YHIoRHC8R_zWu