Incline True Thief 4 Dark Mod is released

[opium fiend]

I just downloaded this and it's fucking amazing, I thought it was just a doom reskin with basic stealth and shit. I'm playing st Lucia's Tears and the atmosphere in the slums is fappable.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Requiem is pretty linear compared to other missions such as Return to the City or A Score to Settle, yes.

Generally the missions do tend to be smaller and a bit more linear than T2 FMs.

The first missions I played I felt they were small, and I thought that it would mean the engine was limited tos small levels. In a way, the dark mod has a thief deadly shadows feeling, because the ragdoll physics, the stencil shadows... the fact that doom 3 came about the same time as TDS... But once you play it, it really is like the originals... And even though requiem is linear, it's a huge level I can't imagine TDS as a game capable of handling that size. It is one of the main TDM levels, along with no honor among thieves, that gave me the feeling that the engine is really fit to make great thief levels. I believe that soon we will get more improvements, and mission builder more familiar with making the levels. And that will bring awesome levels, comparable to the best ones made for thief 2.

I played a score to settle and was kind of disappointed: I went to find the guy the objective list sugest I do first, only to find the bad guy and deal with him before, and when I find the guy i was supposed to meet, the mission ended.

Melan's missions I played a while back, in 1.8 version of TDM. I just did because I was playing his awesome Thief 2 FMs (bad debts and disorientation), which are all supposed to be part of the same arc of stories. His TDM missions were good, but not as great as his thief 2 missions, because those were huge. I must replay his missions now in 2.01.

Oh, and another great thing about the dark mod is that it's colorful. I don't mean diablo 3 kind of colorful, but a game in which color are present as in thief 1 and 2, and not that blueish tone of TDS or the screenshots of thiaf.

There's also one mission I really had fun, "not an ordinary guest", which has city streets and a big hotel in the middle. The hotel is great, it has lots of repetitive rooms, but hey, it's a hotel, and it's very well done. It is also one of the big levels for TDM. And instead of difficult modes, you have 3 different playstyles: assassin, thief and saboteur, each one with its different set of objectives.

That being said, I'm having a blast. Playing through TDM reminds me of the first time I played the thief games.

 

[Melan]

Melan's missions I played a while back, in 1.8 version of TDM. I just did because I was playing his awesome Thief 2 FMs (bad debts and disorientation), which are all supposed to be part of the same arc of stories. His TDM missions were good, but not as great as his thief 2 missions, because those were huge. I must replay his missions now in 2.01.

Thanks, that's fair criticism. Unfortunately, there are objective reasons why I'm not making missions like those anymore.

• One, I can't invest as much time into level-building as I used to between 2007-2009 due to more IRL responsibilities. Bad Debts/Disorientation took 9 and 11 months to create; in comparison, my released TDM missions are all simple and relatively straightforward speedbuilds. In a sense, they are all ''low hanging fruits'', but that's how much time and care I could invest into them.
  
• I contributed one and a half FMs to the Crucible of Omens campaign (a city mission and an extensive rooftop segment) in addition to miscellaneous mapping, readables and most of the cutscene script, but working on the series burned me out really bad. Our team was very small from the get-go, and as it got even smaller due to dropout, we got overwhelmed. I feel bad about it, since we tied up a lot of ambitious* missions in production which really show TDM can do size, scale and complexity, but that's life. Anyway, bikerdude and skacky are currently working on making a self-contained mission out of a map that covered roughly 1/3 of my first FM, and got cut - you'll see it's fairly big on its own.

So unfortunately, this is not a TDM/Dromed thing (if Dromed gave me a much better workflow, I'd go back to it), but a time/RL/burnout thing. I dunno if I will ever do a huge mission again. Wish I could, since I still have my plans / architectural studies, but not it in the near future. When/if I get back to editing, it will almost certainly be something easy and small-scaled. Maybe we'll also see the rest one day.

____
* As in

Spoiler

or

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Thanks, that's fair criticism. Unfortunately, there are objective reasons why I'm not making missions like those anymore.

Well, to be fair, your missions were the first I ever played, in a time I was still skeptical about TDM, and the only reason i played was due to "completionism" on my part. Honestly, I really liked the missions, but what I thought was the reason for the missions being small was due to you probably experimenting with the engine, than actually trying to overcome your achievements in bad debts/disorientation. I played with this in mind, and knowing that the TDM was still not completed. I really liked that TDM was a new tool, but I got afraid that missions would have to be small...

 

[Melan]

That's correct, the original version of Return to the City (note the title) was just that, a way to learn the editor. You can tell from the truly horrible optimalisation problems. It also used TDM 1.0, which did not have enough assets yet to build the slum mission I originally intended.

Anyway, the reason there aren't so many huge TDM missions is largely that people haven't really tried to build them, not feasibility. There are limits, but they come out on the higher end of the scale, like trying to build a huge mission where every fork on every table and every jar on every shelf is fully moveable. Linearity is due to the modern design paradigm or the ''storytelling'' instinct tainting editors' minds, not the engine/editor. The community is also smaller than TTLG in its heyday, which sometimes released two missions a week, every week of the year. On the other hand, some of the recent missions like Lords & Legacy and Requiem were very impressive, and they both came from complete newcomers who had just picked up the editor and made something big with it for their first release.

 

[JarlFrank]

That's correct, the original version of Return to the City (note the title) was just that, a way to learn the editor. You can tell from the truly horrible optimalisation problems. It also used TDM 1.0, which did not have enough assets yet to build the slum mission I originally intended.

Anyway, the reason there aren't so many huge TDM missions is largely that people haven't really tried to build them, not feasibility. There are limits, but they come out on the higher end of the scale, like trying to build a huge mission where every fork on every table and every jar on every shelf is fully moveable. Linearity is due to the modern design paradigm or the ''storytelling'' instinct tainting editors' minds, not the engine/editor. The community is also smaller than TTLG in its heyday, which sometimes released two missions a week, every week of the year. On the other hand, some of the recent missions like Lords & Legacy and Requiem were very impressive, and they both came from complete newcomers who had just picked up the editor and made something big with it for their first release.

It was actually the first William Steele mission by grayman, In the North, that made me go "oh wow, so the TDM engine *can* handle large missions that can rival those of the old Thief! Awesome!" because it was the first really large one I played.

 

[forumvisitor#451]

There is a new mission by Springheel called A Reputation to Uphold, featuring one of the best level designs, Thiefy atmosphere and good storrytelling. It is a continuation of A Score To Settle, so don't expect any supernatural stuff

 

[SCO]

I don't think it does.

 

[Zewp]

Does anyone have a list of the must-play missions for TDM? I've worked my way through Skacky's list and most of them were pretty fun, but I'm not sure which to play next.

 

[catfood]

Does anyone have a list of the must-play missions for TDM? I've worked my way through Skacky's list and most of them were pretty fun, but I'm not sure which to play next.

Real fans play all of them in order anyway.

EDIT: alphabetical order I mean

 

[J_C]

Does anyone have a list of the must-play missions for TDM? I've worked my way through Skacky's list and most of them were pretty fun, but I'm not sure which to play next.

I would like to know this as well. As with any mod, I assume there are lots of shitty ones.

 

[skacky]

There's a bunch of lists in the previous pages.

 

[Garrettt]

Here are a couple of new screenshots from Melans future master piece Penny Dreadful 2

 

[skacky]

I'm beta testing this and it's, so far, the best TDM mission hands down.

 

[Garrettt]

 

[Essegi]

V 2.02 is out:

The Dark Mod releases version 2.02!
TDM 2.02 is now available!

This version includes a number of new features and bugfixes for The Dark Mod. Several exploits have been dealt with, such as a fix for the bunny-hop exploit by SteveL, and new behaviour that allows AI to notice if you blatantly grab onto a door they’re in the process of closing, by grayman.

A fix of a sound bug that was causing sound to drop off too quickly in large spaces (resulting in AI frequently ignoring noise arrows and calls for help) has also been fixed by grayman, and a new AI Hearing slider has been added to the main menu.

New Horizon has adjusted our blackjacking detection so that players are less likely to fail by being too close to an AI.

AI may notice that they’ve been pickpocketed, and will add that to their evidence of an intruder if you cause a mild alert while snatching something from their belt.

In addition, Springheel has added a new AI and vocal set (acted by Goldwell) for mappers to play with: The Moors.

For a more detailed look at the changes and improvements, see here: Changelog

To get the new update, simply run tdm_update.exe.

Note: Saved games from previous versions will not work under 2.02!

 

[SCO]

... fix for the bunny-hop exploit...

NOOOOOOOOO, i shouldn't have reported it


Is the linux version running again or is it broken again?

 

[Icewater]

Melan's new mission is out!

 

[J_C]

Melan's new mission is out!

I've just read that Melan is a hungarian modder. You make our country proud Melan!

 

[Morgoth]

http://www.dsp.agh.edu.pl/en:research:rayav#.VALJMxZJmUl



I wonder if this audio engine could be implemented in TDM?

 

[Bart]

http://www.dsp.agh.edu.pl/en:research:rayav#.VALJMxZJmUl



I wonder if this audio engine could be implemented in TDM?

Of course it could! It is made for this kind of games.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Finished Old Habits, my first (finished) mission on Expert for long, long time. Other missions on Expert weren't that hard or have that stupid limit of blackjacking.

Guard traffic was hilarious. You heard doors open and they just flood inside. Choo-choo motherfuckers. Thank goodness they didn't blocked like others missions where guards/servants just stay on the doors and do nothing.
Managed to grab all loot avaliable. Only to discover that was only half of it. 3900 out of 5200. Where was the rest? Must find Loot List.
Now wonder what next, Old Habits II or some series, like Penny Dreadful?

 

[Melan]

The second Old Habits is a thorough (and superior) rebuild of the first one.

 

[AluminumHaste]

It's obviously a barebones standalone atm. Like they got rid of Doom3 dependencies but haven't moved much after that.

They need to replace stencil shadows with soft ones and replace EAX with EFX and then it will be how it should be. Nobody should suffer the need to have Creative hardware today, especially since Creative released a fully software based EAX.

Also I like AI improvements. They are Chaos Theory grade assholes now. Still need work to smooth out the edges and perhaps new voice overs recorded with grumpier voices but I guess not many of those among nerdy Thief community

Soft shadows are working, in the test build. There are issues, they are being worked on. They do look awesome in some situations, while hard shadows look better in others.
They are definitely not required for TDM to be awesome.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Finished Old Habits 2 and would be superior if not bugs like that cook in the kitchen's wall. As before - Expert, 1:36:00 4450/5200,

PS. it's me or not many people write here cause everyone finished all TDM missions?