downwinder on 29/3/2019 at 23:32
ok alot of older missions had issues and over the past bit of time the wonderful unna and voodoo have been posting fixes for alot of them,but the problem is only people who see those pages to board will get fixx if they know what they doing,so my idea is this,to unna and voodoo go back through all missions from thief 1/g/2 and fix all missions then give missions updated to brethren so he can post them already fixed so this way we dont get to the point of having no broken missions if played on most updated newdark/etc
would be nice to have one place to get thief 1/g/2 fan missions in 100% working order,and not have to fix each one as someone posts what to do,if you even understand it
would take time but since unna and voodoo already been taking the time to post these fixes ,just fix the missions and give updated versions to the people who host the fan missions
i hope you all see what i am trying got say,i still never been able to complete the fan mission where there is 4 different section due to one having a wall blocking one of the area's "i think it was called gauntlet or something"and i don't know 100% how to fix with the info unna put in that board
that is why i had this idea,to help me and also all the others who would rather just have a place to get them fixed and now have to do each one as the fix is posted
its going to be 2020 the days of everyone having to fix all the broken missions themselves seems outdated and the idea a person has to ask permission to fix a mission that was either always broken or broke due to newdark/patches from original creator is not right in my view,its not like you want to change mission ,just fix the issue to make it completed.
also a massive thank you to unna and voodoo for putting in the hardwork to figure to how to fix problems with fan missions,thank you so much
trefoilknot on 30/3/2019 at 00:01
Have at it!
McTaffer on 30/3/2019 at 00:09
We're halfway there, sort of. fortuni's Mission Description thread notes whether missions need a fix or not and contains links to said fixes.
Stingm on 30/3/2019 at 00:23
I agree with downwinder. It would be nice to have fixed missions rather than having to apply fixes. I also have trouble sometimes doing the dmls. I know its a lot of work and would be greatly appreciated. But at the same time I understand if you can't. I know voodoo is working on scp5 and other projects we are all waiting on. Yes for those that may not know voodoo does a lot of work for the system shock community as well. I know unna does a lot too.
fortuni on 30/3/2019 at 00:24
First thing is that all the hard work has been done by me. I've gone through every T1/TG mission and every T2 mission up to 2004, and I'm now halfway through 2005 missions and so far have been responsible for fixing about 130 missions.
I play the mission, report all the bugs I discover to Unna, including obj no's, questvar no's etc and suggest thoughts on what has gone wrong and potential solutions. Unna then makes a dml if possible and I test it, which sometimes means playing the mission again all the way to the finish.
Sometimes the dml does not work and Unna tweaks the dml and I have to retest it, sometimes the dml will go back and forth 6/7 times before we get it right. I may spend 2 days on a mission finding the bugs and testing the dml's, Unna may spend only 5 minutes on a dml sometimes a whole day. I've worked closely with Unna for the last couple of years because she understands how objectives work, which Voodoo couldn't always do, and because she's likes a challenge, if I come across a complex issue she'll spend hours, if not days trying to figure out a solution.
Secondly we
can not fix missions directly. Most authors state clearly in their readme files that no-one can alter or modify their missions. But what we can do is make dml's which is a set of instructions that are given to Newdark, correcting or slightly tweaking what Newdark reads when it scans the authors DromEd instructions, ie it's a bit of a cheat but gets around the sacrosanct rule of not modifying the authors work.
I then post the link to the dml in the (
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148090) Brief Summaries and make a note of them in the (
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139559#T2%20Lootlists) upgraded T2 lootlists which are being compiled for this reason, to give players professional looking lootlists that reports all loot found via Newdark with dml's installed.
Easy to understand instructions as to how to install dml's are found in the OP of the Brief Summaries thread. Read them carefully, take your time, go step by step and they do work.
fortuni on 30/3/2019 at 01:15
Here are some pictorial instructions as to how to install dml's. Please bookmark this thread so you can refer to it in future.
1. Find the mission entry in The Brief Summaries Thread, lets work with The Homeless Dude
Inline Image:
https://i.postimg.cc/XvxmCkRT/peVvPn7.png2. Paste & Copy
all the code in the dml
Inline Image:
https://i.postimg.cc/4y4zhzg4/RatmjpQ.png3. Copy in windows notepad and save following these instructions
Save the 'File Name' as miss xx.mis.dml where xx is the number of the mission file. This varies from mission to mission, so simply paste© the end of the top line in the screenshot above (see highlighted area)
Then in 'Save as type' use All Files
Inline Image:
https://i.postimg.cc/Zn0WSjmd/Bw3ON3H.png4. Windows will then save this file in usually your docs folder, but check it may be saved in another folder.
Now just move the saved dml to your FMsel mission folder. Do not place it in your main Thief folder, but only in your FMsel folder. You can not use dml's if you use Darkloader, you must only use them with FMsel. And no do not place them in your FM's folder or load them into darkloader, these are mini instructions to be added to the FMsel mission folder to give Newdark extra instructions, they do not work as stand alone files.
Inline Image:
https://i.postimg.cc/pLvn9fYJ/2irHlU8.pngdownwinder on 30/3/2019 at 02:02
i also want to thank anyone else who is helping with this,as i am not sure the fully amount of people doing this
and fortuni i thank you for trying to help but its not just about me,but anyone who plays thief fan missions or will play thief fan missions
just to have each person do this is so outdated
and to the person who said about authors not allowing for changing i am a fix is not what they meant,i am sure they meant changing game play/textures/stuff like that,and also if a person has passed away and a fix is needed then what,its about the fan missions at this point and i don't think any one person should trump that
just want to see it all in one type thing the amount of missions already with fixes is insane,just a idea i had ,i know it would be a lot of work but then people can just get mission and play it once they got all updated things for that thief game
in before zylon say why don't you do it,and my response would be "as part of the order of the healing fruit i am not high enough rank to have such task's layed upon me"
dewdrop has joined "the order of the healing fruit also"
also the idea was for only missions that cant be completed in all difficulty's ,other fixes that are not essential are not what i meant so i am sure they make the list of fan missions a lot less
i would forsure jack up my files trying to do that let alone find all the boards with fixes/etc
fortuni on 30/3/2019 at 02:21
Rules are rules.
If I was to publish a book and plagiarised someone else's work I would be taken to court and sued for $1000's, people who copy other people art work go to prison for forgery. We all understand your frustration and desire to make things simple, but in RL you have to follow the rules, and that includes fixing other people fan missions, it's known as intellectual property rights and it can't be done.
ZylonBane on 30/3/2019 at 03:02
Quote Posted by downwinder
in before zylon say why don't you do it
do anything as technical as this? Ahahahhhhahhhahhhhhaaa......
voodoo47 on 30/3/2019 at 17:03
I'm guessing what downwinder is trying to say is that having the user search, create and load dmls manually is not too great. and I actually agree with that, regular users should not be forced to dig around files.
a much better solution would be to include the entire FM fixup dml database inside NewDarkloader (less than 200 files at this moment if I read right, should be just a couple of megabytes if not less), and have it apply the correct fix when the FM is launched (I understand some work has already been done in this area? the readme says "NewDarkLoader can extract the contents of a 'fix' file each time the FM is installed"). ideally, the loader should check an online repo each time it's started, and grab all updated/new files if available.
I've done some research on this, and the first part is completely doable - NewDark can autoload a folder with all the dml fixes inside regardless of their filenames, and only apply those with matching fingerprints. I had a prototype of this working (that's why my dmls have fingerprints), but left it alone in the end, as the demand for T1/TG fm fixes didn't seem that big (are the exact numbers of how many TG/T1 and T2 dml fixes exist available somewhere?).
one way or another, I think what I'm trying to say here is "lets figure out what the right thing to do here is, and once that is done, do it right from that point onward".
