darky on 3/6/2004 at 16:36
tested and rated fms will get there place in the city. not rated fms not. so there is a mainmap with garretts house in the "middle" and buildings around which each contains a new mission. The people who controll this, can build up the city, and filling it with "action between missions" and they can give every fm a own place. If the Fm is done, it will be rated and it will get the reserved place in the city, it must not be always a house, maybe a dark or sewer entrance, a boat, and so on ... (the info about the mod, the player can read ingame outside from the fm in a short letter pinned on a wall besides the fm entrance. seems nice :)
Fingernail on 3/6/2004 at 19:02
Now let's get working on an actual editor.
As far as I can tell, UnrealEd should open .t3u files in the same way as .u files, they're probably just renamed to give uniqueness. Even with the modifications, if we can just find the file, make a file, or whatever, that tells UnrealEd about all the modifications, then we're away.
Doesn't someone know how to unpack the .ibt files or whatever they're called? JohnP?
We need a site, a forum.
Also, I'm going to contact the Unreal Developer's Network about it. Not that I expect a reply. Any programmers here?
EDIT: I believe there has been *some* progress DXIW stuff, like DXTool, which has already been transferred. We should try to team up, create a generic Thief3/DXIW editor as they are essentially the same engine.
SubJeff on 3/6/2004 at 19:43
Quote:
essentially the same engine
Depends how you look at it. From our point of view they are very different. Besides nothing will come of a DXIW editor. Not in the same way as a TDS editor. Why bother with the extra complication?
Jenesis on 3/6/2004 at 22:47
I guess in terms of layout, you could hack extra exits into the existing city, or start from scratch. Someone mentioned a kind of coach stop area - you could use that for a lot of the one-off FMs. Big projects can be given a new exit from the existing city, and can expand behind that as they please (though you'd want a rough idea of where other parts of the city are so you don't have areas doubling up on a map). Given sufficient compatibility checking, big projects could also have permission to make changes to the existing city. Alternatively, a big project might take place somewhere other than 'the' city, so make these really prominent in the coach area.
Garrett's place could be decked out with some kind of groovy free-standing portal system, allowing players to go straight to the coach station, for example.
The only problem with this is if two people want to have a mission in the same place - what if two people want to recreate Cragscleft and have missions there? If the administrators of the city were to decree it, then every new mission in an area would have to use the previous map as a starting point, to maintain geometry continuity, and each mission would have to take place after the last one. Some kind of triggering system would them get the levels to play in order - every time you go to Cragscleft, you get the next mission. Users would have to have the option to skip over missions, though, and if this were to happen you'd probably want some kind of review-based quality control so that we're not flooded with 5-minute Cragscleft efforts. On the other hand, you don't want to squash keen young things who haven't got the kinks out of their level design yet. Maybe there should be a coach area for missions that are not officially incorporated into the 'canon' player city. Levels made canon might then be relocated to another part of the coach station, or even into parts of the city itself - there could well be parts with mysterious mansions and so on, that people can use as a starting point for missions.
Eh, I'm waffling, but it's fun. Moderation would definitely be required. I'm sure the TTLG admins/mods could come up with a suitable team, though.
SubJeff on 3/6/2004 at 23:57
No. The Cragscleft missions would be different and you just choose which to go to. They would be entirely different installs just like they would be at the moment with DromEd.
sorcerykid on 25/3/2006 at 07:19
Hi!
Sorry to revive such an old topic, but I'm very curious whether this project was simply dropped or if there is someplace I can followup on the status of it?
I am very interested in helping out in any way possible to make this happen. I think a community effort to develop a complete working virtual steampunk world around the Thief game still has a lot of potential.
Back when the Quake 1 engine was opened up to fan developers, I pondered using it to create an interactive medieval/fantasy universe that flowed seamlessly from map to map with various RPG and fan fiction elements that could all constantly evolve through continual contributions by level designers. Unfortunately, I just never had the time to really flesh out the concept. But maybe it's not too late to still follow through on it.
I definitely have a lot of ideas of how to make this work. :)
Thanks!
Brother Reginald on 25/3/2006 at 15:21
Hey. I was wondering why this old thread had suddenly came back...
Still it's a pretty cool idea. I would prefer to use a different City to 'The City', as this would probably conflict with the established setting. Also, a different character to Garrett would probably be nicer, because then the poor guy would never get a break! He'd be able to retire far too soon if there were too many missions, and we don't want that!
Sorcerykid, you tried checking out other forums? It might have been relocated, or alternatively it could have just died out I geuss.
sorcerykid on 26/3/2006 at 03:53
Thanks, I searched pretty thoroughly and couldn't find anything.
But it looks like The Dark Mod could make this all happen anyway. It's a community development that will include a Thief-like world but with different characters and settings. And that's basically what would really make this work.
