Volca on 25/6/2008 at 07:07
Quote Posted by New Horizon
This will also be huge for the community. It may very well be that we will have the full source code by the time we hit our first non-beta 1.0 release! :) We'll have access to all the little issues that we had to find fixes to get around. I'm very hopeful.
This is exactly what came to my mind when I read about it :)
The Magpie on 25/6/2008 at 07:48
Oh. I just thought of something.
When the code is released, there's little reason not to offer a full-game distro, right? Like other free idTech variants are released under labels like Nexuiz, etc.
Then I start having more than a little trouble with the name "The Dark Mod." A mere "mod"? In the old days this would at least be called a TC - a Total Conversion. But I have troubles with both "Mod" and "The". "Mod" suggests that the original must be present, and right now that's correct. But it's also an extra-gameworld reference, which is unusual for any game title, let alone a standalone game. I can only think of NetHack right now.
Now, TDM is as good an acronym as any. Good, Thiefy letters, those. But let's imagine that the abbreviation is kept, but the meaning changed. What would it be? Some ideas might be
Theft: The Dark Metal
Thieves' Doom Maker
which both are blah, but just to get the discussion started.
I don't know if this has been debated elsewhere, but to me, this is almost disproportionally important, lame as it is. So I thought I'd offer my opinion.
--
L.
Springheel on 25/6/2008 at 11:13
After four years of development, I don't think a name change is on the table. :)
Besides, the name is a fairly obvious nod towards "The Dark Project".
New Horizon on 25/6/2008 at 15:30
Quote Posted by Springheel
Besides, the name is a fairly obvious nod towards "The Dark Project".
Exactly!
"The Dark Mod"
"Broken Glass Studio"
All in honor of Looking Glass and it's legacy.
cacka on 25/6/2008 at 17:39
That's good news. I guess the only reason JC wouldn't release the d3 source next year is if someone picked up the license last minute. That happened With q3 source. JC planned to release it the end of 2004, but then they had a late buyer, and pushed it back to summer 2005 to avoid treading on toes.
Though of course q3 was a very popular engine, d3 isn't so much, so that seems unlikely I guess.
New Horizon on 25/6/2008 at 18:37
Quote Posted by cacka
Though of course q3 was a very popular engine, d3 isn't so much, so that seems unlikely I guess.
Which is really strange, as it's such a fantastic engine...but oh well, when our work is finished...the community will have a fully sourced engine!
The Magpie on 25/6/2008 at 19:43
Quote Posted by New Horizon
Exactly!
"The Dark Mod"
"Broken Glass Studio"
All in honor of Looking Glass and it's legacy.
Oh, I did get the nod, obvious as it is. That's not the issue. I'm all for a title honoring the legacy, don't get me wrong. I merely aired my dissatisfaction with the particular title, and tried to explain why I'd like to see an alternate title.
But while we're discussing that, the first game was
not actually called "The Dark Project", was it? Not the English version, at least. You must have been thinking of the German title: - "Dark Project: Der Meisterdieb". And even the English version changed titles a couple of times prior to release (during which period it actually was called The Dark Project for a while), landing on "Thief: The Dark Project". I imagine there would have been some pulling and shoving internally at LGS before that title was finally decided, too.
What I'm saying is that I'd naturally like to keep TDM referencing the original, but that I think the current title falls far short. Let me reiterate. "Dark" is excellent. "Mod" is teh fail. "The" - well, if it can be substituted with something Thievish, so mcuh the better, but if one must, one must.
"The Dark Machine", then, seeing as it's an engine for developing FMs? Plus it contains a nod to
both the Dark Engine titles? Or Theft: The Dark Machine, I don't know. Had it supported co-op, I'd probably have gone for Thieves: The Dark Machine.
Because the moment the source has been recompiled, the game has really moved on from being a mere mod. It deserves a better title. Think about it.
--
L.
Only wanting TDM to become the very best it can be.
Wille on 25/6/2008 at 19:47
Could the D3 source be used to create radiosity style lighting and combine that with dynamic shadows? Something like T2 with dynamic shadows would be awesome :).
demagogue on 25/6/2008 at 20:58
@The Magpie, The DarkMod grows on you. Give it time. It's being coyly modest, exactly opposite of the tendancy to throw out extreme "Thiefish" words, like "Deadly Shadows". I dig that.
Also -- don't believe I didn't think of this right away -- there's the obvious fact that it isn't a game at all ... it's just the toolset. You don't want to confuse things by giving it a game title. (Edit: oh, well you already thought of that in your last post, I guess. "Machine" does have a ring, but the whole thing has already sort of crystallized.)
I hope an open source D3 engine will allow someone to get some Quake 4 improvements in there ... the improved ambient lighting, maybe lip synching...
New Horizon on 25/6/2008 at 21:22
Quote Posted by demagogue
I hope an open source D3 engine will allow someone to get some Quake 4 improvements in there ... the improved ambient lighting, maybe lip synching...
Quake 4 ambient lighting has been available in D3 for years. It's just a simple light shader and was in D3 but it was hardly used within the game. Even the quake 4 ambient suffers from the same issue as D3 ambient lights though, that problem being that they're from a weird angled direction rather than non-directional.
One of our coding contributors fixed the directional issues several months ago, so our ambient lighting is far superior to Quake 4 or Prey. It is slightly more taxing on older hardware since it performs a few more mathematical equations, but we have also implemented some new optimizations for the lighting which allows Dark Mod to run far better on older hardware. :)
