The Dark Mod released!!

New Horizon on 21/10/2009 at 13:07

Quote Posted by sparhawk

I don't really expect "years of training needed" to make decent FMs from prospective mappers.

Definitely not years. The learning curve is certainly not that steep. If I can use it, anyone can use it.

Fidcal on 21/10/2009 at 13:08

Quote Posted by irR4tiOn4L

Ive finished all the misisons and was trying get a good stealth score by ghosting Chalice but had a crash that corrupted my quicksave (Arrg!). Ive had a total of two crashes to desktop which isnt much at all but still, better to save properly every so often!

Id like to know how the stealth score works, and whether guards can be 'locked in'. I tried stealing a key from one and locking him out but that didnt seem to work, and for stealth score ive only seen 0 (knocked most of the guards out the first time)

Did i mention how awesome this game is? It doesnt feel like Beta at all

The stealth score is going to be reviewed and hopefully rewritten. At the moment it starts at 10 and 1 point is deducted for even tiny alerts that you might not even notice. Think extreme ghosting then double it. Also remember these AI can see further than in Thief so they might mutter something far down a corridor that you don't even hear. "... thought I saw something ... must have been rats" kind of thing. Good luck with that.

Springheel on 21/10/2009 at 13:13

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how many of them would risk to sacrifice years in order to make properly detailed enviroinments that would fit modern graphical standards?),

Besides basic playtesting and revising, the Chalice and Crown maps took less than two months to complete. Outpost took less than two weeks. You're seriously over-estimating what can be done with the editor in a reasonably short period of time.

bukary on 21/10/2009 at 13:24

They say that the best place to hide a letter is on the mantlepiece.

Solution to problems:
A) "game freezes and loads some data from hard drive while opening doors"
B) "while loading mission you are returned to the menu and need to restart loading"
is
DISABLE EAX 4.0 HD in Audio Settings menu.

Now I can finally enjoy your great work, TDM team! :D

meazum on 21/10/2009 at 13:26

Quote Posted by Springheel

DOn't you mean Underestimating? That sounds like a short period of time.

piln on 21/10/2009 at 13:29

Thanks for replies re: proper editing of cfg files, chests (it never occurred to me during play that all the lid-only chests in Outpost were already unlocked), etc.

Changing seta tdm_grabber_reverse_control to "1" corrected the distance manipulation for me, without altering any of the other things I use mousewheel for (inventory, book pages - they still scroll the same way, so everything is correct for me now).

d'Spair on 21/10/2009 at 13:33

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d'spair: I think I speak for everyone in that we totally disagree with you about Dark Radiant. I've never heard a single one complain about the selection keys and I am completely unconscious of using them I find it so instinctive. Are we talking about the same program? To imply that it would take years to get to grips with DR is frankly absurd. I recommend anyone to try Dark Radiant and follow the wiki tutorial and you can produce a tiny demo FM in days.

[edit] re-reading your post maybe you are not talking about Dark Radiant in which case I'd emphasise that if I were you as it might discourage people from trying to produce FMs. :)

Out of some 3D games editors I worked with (DromEd, different versions of UnrealEd, QuARk and Radiant (mostly Quake 1 and Doom 3 versions) ), I find Radiant to be the most awkwardly interfaced editor by far.

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I think you should try Dark Radiant yourself, it's different from Radiant. From what I read it seems it's much more convenient than DromEd.

I don't think I would've been that stupid to post about Dark Radiant without testing it. However, it took me like 10 minutes to see that some of the interface problems peculiar to Radiant remain in Dark Radiant. However, I'm absolutely sure that some practice will help. It's just my personal opinion, I really can hardly stand Radiant.

Quote:

The Outpost
by angua & greebo

This map was supposed to showcase what can be achieved in one week using TDM's stock resources.

I haven't played this mission yet. However, as I already stated, the architecture in some of the Dark Mod missions (even those that are not released yet, judging by screenshots) look quite boxy.

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You make it sound like it's this awful tool to work with, when it really hasn't been for many people...many who are dromed users. I can understand if you simply said you didn't like it and left it at that, but you're painting such a horrible picture of the editor...it's almost like you're trying to scare people away from even trying it.

No way. People build great games with Radiant, you know. It can't be a bad editor as it is. I don't want to repeat again, it's just my personal view on Radiant in comaprision with other editors out there. I never really worked much with Radiant because of its interface (always preferred QuARk for Quake games), so I think there are some great and very powerful tools hidden beyond my knowledge.

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No, I'm pretty sure he's talking about Dark Radiant....unless he's confusing the built in Doom 3 Editor with Dark Radiant, but that's not likely.

Fidcal is right, I was talking about Radiant in general.

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Again I have to repeat that in some places missions made for The Dark Mod look quite boxy.

mazzortock on 21/10/2009 at 13:46

Quote Posted by Wille

My suggestion is to change melee so that you use movement keys to select the slashes and parrying directions like in so many games before (Arx Fatalis, Oblivion and Dark Messiah to name a few). That way we could aim and do effective attacks without too much hassle.

I totally agree!
Using mouse to make direction it's really difficult and strange, because you loose also the front view.
Using arrow keys will be more intuitive and clear to control slashes.

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Other than that the combat was superb and I liked how the AIs weren't a picknick either. Also the fact you could end the battle with one aimed thrust is a nice thing.

Yes, i agree: superb it's the right word!

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2.
Secondly the arrows fly just too fast in my opinion. In reality arrows are very fast yes, but in a game realism doesn't always work. In T1 and T2 arrows were quite large and slow which ment you could easily see how the flew and what they hit. You still had to aim in T1 and T2 however so it wasn't just a shooting gallery. Also I'm finding it hard to aim my arrows because they have all different sized tips. In T1 and T2 aiming was a lot easier because the reticle we had applied for every arrow. Have you thought of making the bow like in the first two games?

I agree also here. A very little bit slower will be perfect, IMHO.

Thanks for sharing.

morgan on 21/10/2009 at 14:11

Quote Posted by bukary

Solution to problems:
A) "game freezes and loads some data from hard drive while opening doors"
B) "while loading mission you are returned to the menu and need to restart loading"
is
DISABLE EAX 4.0 HD in Audio Settings menu.

Now I can finally enjoy your great work, TDM team! :D

Glad you found that the game plays fine now :joke: after turning EAX 4.0 off why would EAX 4.0 cause such problems?

Renault on 21/10/2009 at 14:22

Quote Posted by d'Spair

Again I have to repeat that in some places missions made for The Dark Mod look quite boxy.

Look out the window man, the real world is quite boxy... :laff:

I've used both Dromed and DR, and I find DR much easier to use and create basic architecture and game levels. Granted, my editing prowess is on a level of probably only 5 or 6 out of 10, but I can't imagine that creating more advanced things would take the "years" that you reference. Although they will hopefully be bigger, I'm guessing the majority of levels released will be fine with the detail level of St. Lucia or Chalice or the training mission.