Moghedian on 28/3/2004 at 06:28

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<I>Poly's first FM is gold
The hardest ranking to hold
His early attempt is in flower
Being built for another hour

Then Real Life got in the way
So Yandros saved the Day
Plots thicken to enhance the Thieves play
Death's Cold Embrace will be here soon, one day</I> :)





Yandros is working on the plot, the scripts for the voiceacting and some of the writings ... it would be difficult to show any of that without it being a major spoiler. Please be assured that it is a match for the rest of the mission:D

Yandros on 31/3/2004 at 14:59

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:eek: I've just walked around the city streets in Poly's DCE2 mission, and it's just phenomenal. The screens he posted earlier don't even do it justice. And the story he has worked out for it... well, I can't give it away, but it will be great. I suspect we'll try and release them together as a pack, especially since the three of us (me, Poly and Moghedian) are working closely together on both missions developing the storylines.

I don't have any new screens to share publicly this week, but progress has been made...
Slyfoxx has all the scripts for the voice acting and is working on getting them finished up and in the mail.
I've gotten a fair amount of one of the new areas done, as well as a few new objects and some voice and music work of my own.

Dracip on 1/4/2004 at 07:38

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Those screenshots look really great.

I noticed the light switches in one of the rooms. If you turn them off, will the ai turn them back on if noticed, especially when they are searching that area?
Logically it should be be done; it is easier than relighting torches.

I ask this because I saw something similar in Lorgan's Web.
I turned off all the lights in the mansion, and later startled some little idiot. He ran away and I chased him... all the way to the power generation room where he proceeded to through every lever to restore power.
It was a very immersive moment which almost brought a tear to my eye :).

If I could voice other feature requests, especially if the game is as good as it sounds:

- all building accessable that are visible
even if the area is empty of interesting items and all look the same. If they look like they are there, they should be.

- all windows need to be transparent or if not, then either stain-glass or no glass.

- no doors which are not doors.
That is, pictures of doors on walls that don't highlight, which when you are searching for a way in somewhere and see the door, you discover that the door doesn't exist.
Although you still can't open it, this is a totally different disappointment than finding a real door which is locked.

- if there is a part where Garrett travels through the streets, there should be more people who aren't enemies, or are frightened of him. And if any are timid, they shouldn't notice him unless it is very bright and he stays close to them.
Otherwise it has a doom-like quality: if it moves, it's an enemy.

- there shoud be some people, lower servants, who don't react negatively to him, unless he does something violent near them.
Most would be used to seeing guards and guests of their master, both the nobles and the dangerous.
Most would have little love for their master and not really care who was around, unless directly a danger to them.

- noone should be in one place the entire time of the game.
This allows more opportunity to play like a thief. It isn't so great having to knock everyone out to get further, or having to draw a guard away by revealing your presence.
NPCs need to look like they are living. Even if one character needs to be in a certain place for an objective to work, like a lord near some object, he shouldn't just stand near it the entire time. He should randomly visit other places, returning within a certain time window. If he isn't there when the thief gets there, Garrett will just have to wait.
Life is unpredictable.

- noone should be over sensitive, especially when not in search mode
When there are noises all around, Garrett would be harder to hear. If there are people legitimately walking around, guards wouldn't be able to tell that some of them belong to someone not suppose to be there.
Sleeping people shouldn't be very alert.


These things heighten immersion, make the game world seem more real.
Mission that have this, if they have a good story too of course, are imho the best kind.

deadman on 2/4/2004 at 04:36

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Yandros of course brings up some good points. I think someone, mayhaps by the name of Dracip, *cough cough*, needs some proper schooling on what can and can't be done in DromEd ;). Heck, we'd ALL like a huge city with EVERY frickin' building accessible, but Dark is an old engine, and love it as we do, some weaknesses it has (in the words of Yoda).. :p With loading zones (arrgh) and the new engine, we may be able to build missions with higher complexity and more accessible buildings, but who knows. I'd suggest downloading a few Morrowind mods, Dracip if you want to enter every entrance :thumb:. About passersby in the night streets, I think it would actually be neat to have a few maids, peasants, nobles even right within Garrett's view as the mission starts. They could all be walking very busily out of sight, where they are teleported out, and a few thug-like characters start making the rounds (thieves, vagrants), but totally oblivious to Garrett's presence unless he does something to them. It would be neat to actually watch the point where regular people go indoors and those of a lesser ilk start their business activities :ebil:.. *sigh* ahh, that'd be nice. It definitely wouldn't be normal for 'regular folk' to be strolling around when Garrett's about, though.. At least not permanently, as I stated above. Aah, and you could have a clock tolling the hour just when the mission starts/the AI are teleported out.

deadman.

deadman on 2/4/2004 at 19:06

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No, what I'm talking about is some real general statements, such as:
* EVERY building can't be made accessible in a large mission.
* EVERY room/area can't have tons of objects and lights to make it feel lived in or more 'real'.
* EVERY bit of architecture can't have tons of detail in it; there will probably be a few blocky areas or arches of little detail.
* EVERY window can't be transparent.
* The ENTIRE frickin' level can't be made viewable at one time without crashing Thief (i.e., for those who say "Why did you place that wall/building right there? The view would be so nice, here...").
* Every rooftop can't be made accessible for the same reason (unless some brushes with sky textures are used to block out other areas)

Those are a few that come to mind.. Again, if we all collectively agree we want huge environs with each building accessible, we should collectively migrate over to Morrowind modding (or use an engine with similar capabilities) :laff:.

deadman.