Wingman on 11/1/2006 at 03:31
This post is aimed at Northon or anybody else with some degree of technical skill.
I’ve been using Northon’s difficulty mods for both Thief 1 and Thief 2 for over a year now and I greatly enjoy them. For anybody who hasn’t installed these mods yet, they should at least give it a shot. It greatly enhances the game. There are some problems though that I find mildly annoying and would like to figure out how to change (assuming it’s not too difficult).
First, the zombies are too fast! I’m used to my zombies being slow and shambling, not as fast (or faster) than normal guards. Is there a way to quickly and easily change this speed settings?
Secondly, the AI alertness can be buggy on some levels. This is more of a TMA than a TDP problem, with the level Thieves Guild being the only major offender. In TMA guards and servants tend to become alert at the slightest noise and sleepers wake up when doors/chests are opened. This is probably not as simple as a speed setting, but is there a relatively painless way to change this? It would be an otherwise flawless addition to any Thief game.
Thanks.
Domarius on 11/1/2006 at 05:12
The zombies are too fast?? Wuss!! Ever seen Dawn of the Dead? That is the kind of zombies they're supposed to be like now.
Regarding the other problems, I never experienced them, but the difficulty mod doesn't work for FMs that have their own custom dark.gam file, so hafl the time I dont' get the difficulty mod features depending on what FM I'm playing.
Tulsidas on 11/1/2006 at 06:01
Quote Posted by Domarius
the difficulty mod doesn't work for FMs
Which is good, for me leastways. I prefer ghost attempts.
Emerald Wolf on 11/1/2006 at 07:18
Quote Posted by Domarius
The zombies are too fast?? Wuss!!
Pesonally I find this ruins the ambiance of undead missions because normally when listening for the undead you'd hear them go *squelch*... *Squelch*... *Squelch* but with the mod Its more like *squelchsquelchsquelch*. Now if you could set it so that they only run once they've seen you, that'd be perfect.
Wingman on 11/1/2006 at 08:55
Quote Posted by Emerald Wolf
Now if you could set it so that they only run once they've seen you, that'd be perfect.
I actually think you can do that. All AI seem to be able to have distinctive 'walk' and 'run' movements. It would indeed be pretty cool if zombies moved at their normal slow pace and sped up a lot once they saw you, though not as fast as Haunts 'cause that would just be silly.
Domarius on 12/1/2006 at 05:09
Hmm maybe.
I still like it how it is though.
I tested it out by playing the original mission... the one where you have to rescue cutty... don't know the name of it. When I crept toward a hallway and saw my first zombie walking past - and then more and more of them, really fast, it was insane! I was freaked out - no way I could get through this!!
But I did, I ran through a gap that I didn't think was possible.
Northon on 10/3/2006 at 00:32
The moving speed of the AI's in Thief is about the easiest thing to change. Load up DromEd and look in the Object Hierarchy. Once you have found the 'zombie' section you can set the 'Time Warp' parameter to whatever it used to be (1.0 probably).
Making it so that zombies only run when they are chasing you would be more involved, but possible. I really wish that we could get the Thief source code. Then I could really go to town with the AIs instead of hacking around in DromEd.
Maybe I'll update the mods this summer if I have time (so busy these days).
The zombie speed thing seems to be a common complaint. The reason I changed their speed was because the old zombies were a joke to the experienced player. Even though the mod allows them to see you more easily, without the speed increase you could easily run circles around them. The running/walking thing might be a good compromise, I'm not sure.
Domarius on 11/3/2006 at 23:48
I have always agreed with you on the zombie speed thing, ever since I first played it. Thanks for the tip!
