Unna Oertdottir on 11/3/2019 at 10:35
Quote Posted by voodoo47
the way I see it, the question we are asking is, "should we deprive the vast majority of a fix/enhancement just because one person in a thousand might have an issue with it/not like it?"
also there always is that one guy that did something so crazy in his mission that you have no chance of making your patcher ready for it - that's what (fan) mission dmls are for.
gamesys.dml will override mission.dml, so that's hard to fix. Remember (
https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=149207&p=2402861&viewfull=1#post2402861) this ?
So don't do it. You'll get in trouble ;)
You never know what an FM author is doing. For OMs, it's okay but not for FMs.
FireMage on 11/3/2019 at 10:49
Quote Posted by voodoo47
"should we deprive the vast majority of a fix/enhancement just because one person in a thousand might have an issue with it/not like it?"
..because you obviously set up a serious poll to conclude that most of people wants to play with "HD" textures in TG/T2 despite the fact those new texture do not fit with the environment...?
It's just your personnal opinion unless you have proves that'll show us that's what people wants/asked for.
I even think that people don't care much about HD stuff since they have decided to play TG/T2 because THEY WANT to play TG/T2 with it original aspects and design.
I personnaly saw more people complaining with issues or denaturisations made with those mods than applauding the new HD face it brings (If you want me to tell who told me this: my brother, two irl-friends and several authors and players I know well. Add obviously the other users who are posting their disagreements here).
You tend to forget than when someone is launching a 90's-2001 game nowadays it's certainly not for graphics but pure nostalgia. Trying the improve/change the graphics should always be an option available only for those who are curious to know, since you've got a nostalgic public who just want to see their game with it original face working with the new patch on their new machine. If you change the visual, they'll lost the thing they're looking for, the one that missed them.
In addition, I will say that most of HD packs don't work with TG/T2 since the levels architecture is simplistic. Whatever the HD texture you may use, even if it's a 1024x1024, if your world is made of sharp low polys angles, it will never looks like a HD AAA game but a sharp low polys world. Think more about it!
voodoo47 on 11/3/2019 at 10:51
"something easy that would smooth the game out" literally is what regular people are asking for. as for undesirable results, I would need to see examples - "the chandelier is hires, the fm is now unplayable" or something along those lines.
as for the global fixes, again, if something works differently under NewDark, and the fix is meant to bring the functionality or visuals closer to oldDark, then the fix should be global. hard vs smooth edges on plants and mantleability are perfect examples - basically, the global fixes should make sure that under no circumstances are the visuals inferior to oldDark because the renderer works differently (hard edges on plants unless proper transparency settings are applied), and that the gameplay is not changed in an undesirable manner (mantling objects that weren't meant to be mantled). considering the straightforwardness of those two fixes, the chances of them causing issues are close to zero.
I will need very, very strong evidence that would suggest otherwise to change my stance on this - "I don't like it" is not going to cut it.
//no poll, but I do hang around steam and other forums where ordinary people ask for stuff, so I can kind of tell what they are going for. also, never seen anyone complain that "the skies are not a pixelated mess anymore, I can't use this" after patching up - it's "hey, this is exactly what I needed" almost always. you need to realize that you are a special needs minority group - meaning you should be unticking things you (know you) don't like in the loadout screen, not the other way around.
GORT on 11/3/2019 at 11:01
Speaking of HD textures, let me show you an example of what one pack did to my entry for the Thief 20th anniversary contest.
Inline Image:
https://i.imgur.com/ydOwUWUh.jpgIf the HD textures are not even close to the vanilla textures, it can greatly distort the FM author's artistic intent.
My point here is that you should think whether or not you should before just doing it.
marbleman on 11/3/2019 at 11:04
I'm not trying to change your stance, voodoo. That has been proven time and again to be futile.
The decision is for Jax64 to make, and I want to make sure that both sides of the argument are represented.
voodoo47 on 11/3/2019 at 11:09
that is fair - however it needs to pointed out that you (vanilla) guys are a minority (with a very strong presence here). as mentioned, most people just want to patch up, make the game look nicer, and get on with their gaming.
yes, that was a mistake on my part, basically implementing a very local mission fix on a global scale and not realizing this is not a good idea - not going to happen again (local fixes will always be done locally in the future). also not really applicable in this situation (as technically, that was a bug I've made happen). everyone makes mistakes, that's why I follow all the discussions so carefully, always looking for problems that might have been caused by something I did.
Quote Posted by marbleman
I'm not trying to change your stance, voodoo. That has been proven time and again to be futile.
I'm always ready to learn new stuff and change it accordingly. but you need to have something on your hand (ex. here are the great many steam forum topics where people are complaining about TFix installing the enhanced skies by default).
FireMage on 11/3/2019 at 11:34
Well, since you want to be arrogant and ask for an exemple, let's talk. :)
Did we told you that because of your mods, everytime I'm doing a fan mission or a campaign (TBP for example), everytime we go to the test, we've got issues because of THE HD MODS you forced people to install because of the options ticked per default?
Did we told you that everytime during those alpha and beta tests we are always wasting an incredible time to fix the bugs or installation issues made from the same mods conflicting with our models, textures and meshes?
Dmls are fine because it sticks to the concerned missions but Mods are always active whatever the mission you're playing.
Because you should know an author who wants to do some good job should always work from a vanilla game (to increase the chances to make something compatible with most of players) and when your original flat dishes are now sinking in the table because a tester got the EP installed per default or you find out half of your mission is made of a weird mix of retro and HD textures in a screenshot, it's always a pain to got this fixed by writing a tutorial on how to get rid of these mods and explaining to your tester why is all your visual work messed up (like missing water frames that turn into jorge by example).
To OMs, you could claim to bring something new and fresh (despite the denaturisation I've told you about but refuse to admit), but you are absolutely not thinking about the FMs and the consequences of forcing people to get the HD mods by keeping them Ticked per default since they obviously don't know how those mods looks like at the first time... and after this, authors got players asking why there's sinking dishes, weird visual and gameplay issues.
YES gameplay issus as well. Because some object are larger than the original... then sometimes hide the nearby objects.. so imagine the consequence when you have hidden a key on the floor behind a hammer icon which is easy to see with the orignal model but now inside the new hd model that spread on it? Or should we talk about the fact HD AIs are faster than the LD ones since meshes speed can be alternated by their size? Trust me, when a TG guard is replaced by a T2 guard, the patrols that were balanced before can quickly become completely desynchronized changing the whole gameplay to pass a room, especially when an author (like me) is setting his patrol with accuracy so the player could catch the second he needed to pass a corridor.
That's all about the mods.
About mantling, I could eventualy agree with you (so take it as prove I'm not against you) but I will advice you not doing it either since I'm sure that among 1000+ FMs, there are chances to meet missions with mantleable lamps, grates or torches that should be kept mantleable : keep in mind that several authors don't create custom objects within the gamesyst and several times resize, reskin or change the shape of existing object to inherits their properties but use them in different purposes and grates are oftenly used as catwalk in many many fan missions... that you must be able to mantle... so it's a good idea on the paper but in practise, you'll accidentaly break several missions... :erg:
voodoo47 on 11/3/2019 at 11:43
it has been mentioned that the changed visuals are not appreciated at places. but showstoppers? I don't think so. gimme a mission, I'll test it.
anyway, as now we are talking about TFix and nothing else, can a moderator move these last two posts to the TFix topic please? we can continue this there.
Quote Posted by FireMage
keep in mind that several authors don't create custom objects within the gamesyst and several times resize, reskin or change the shape of existing object to inherits their properties but use them in different purposes and grates are oftenly used as catwalk in many many fan missions... that you must be able to mantle... so it's a good idea on the paper but in practise, you'll accidentaly break several missions... :erg:
nope - the object wouldn't be mantleable in oldDark, so making in not mantleable in NewDark to make sure new_mantle is not making it mantleable would still be fine.
//ok, lets address two more things here - if you have issues with water frames, that means you are still not setting the frame count in your mtl. bad practice. another bad idea it to make the fm NOT compatible with the few most popular texture packs - some people will definitely want to use those, so a fm should ideally be texture pack friendly (I'm doing this with the OMs). so basically, you are telling all the people who want lets say, use EP2 with your fm that they can just buzz off, that combo is not supported, and this is ok. but when I do the same thing ("this TFix mod selection is not compatible with that fm, don't use it"), then suddenly it's bad?
anyway, if you (or anyone else) want to delve into this more, post again in the TFix topic, would you kindly.
marbleman on 11/3/2019 at 12:01
This part
Quote:
About mantling, I could eventualy agree with you (so take it as prove I'm not against you) but I will advice you not doing it either since I'm sure that among 1000+ FMs, there are chances to meet missions with mantleable lamps, grates or torches that should be kept mantleable : keep in mind that several authors don't create custom objects within the gamesyst and several times resize, reskin or change the shape of existing object to inherits their properties but use them in different purposes and grates are oftenly used as catwalk in many many fan missions... that you must be able to mantle... so it's a good idea on the paper but in practise, you'll accidentaly break several missions...
relates to the topic at hand and basically sums up my reservations with such a change. You don't know what went through the heads of every single FM author and how they intended their missions to be played.
voodoo47 on 11/3/2019 at 12:04
as mentioned, if the object was not mantleable in oldDark, then it should be made not mantleable in NewDark to make sure it's really not mantleable even when new_mantle is enabled. not seeing any flaw in that logic - the result will be just that it will not be mantleable no matter what engine version you run.
